The man who invented the box – DW – 08/19/2025

Two narrow straps that sit just above the hipbon, cutting their edges into the flesh planted in the sun: box.

Thesis Days, thanks to the revival of fashion from the 2000s, it seems in every way: sticking out of lowly enhanced jeans, undergoing transparent beach clothes flickering or revealing deryres on the beach.

But those who would not know about the box bath suit are that its construction was political – and its creators were a gay person.

July 1974: Las Angeles in the last summer of naked bath

“Everyone was naked,” a lifeguard remembers in a newspaper La Times. In the summer of 1974, Venice Beach became a sea of bare bottles. No one knows how to become a popular place for the famous beach naturalists in Los Angeles, but Hippie easily popularized Nyadist Craze, taking advantage of the fact that there was no clear restriction on nudity.

But the dream of naked summer did not last long: First the press came, then the police. After nudity, headlines made, Los Angeles immediately banned it completely.

People are naked in a park, a man has flowers on his head.
Hippy adopted nudity in famous form, such as here at the 1969 Woodstock FestivalImage: UPI/DPA/Picture Alliance

What to do with its box?

Rudy Garnrich, the Austrian-born designer who lived in LA, revolted against the ban by creating a small piece of fabric for all sexes that only covered bare minimum.

The designer was not interested in sex with the bodies. Conversely: He wanted to free them.

“The liberation of the body will fix its sexual hang-up society,” Gernrich once said.

This was the first time he broke taboo with fashion.

Behind a Rudy Gernarich design.
The character behind a Rudy Gernarich design is what we know as a boxImage: Rudy Gernrich

Garnarich was born on August 8, 1922 in a Jewish family in Vienna. He was 16 years old when he ran away from Nazis with his mother in 1938, and settled in Los Angeles. His father’s hair had taken his life some time ago. To survive, his mother sold cooked goods to door-to-door and young Rudy washed corpses, which were to be tested.

“I sometimes smile when people tell me that my clothes are so conscious that I must have studied anatom.

Their actual studies, however, were in art; Hey went to work as a costume designer and a dancer.

Their design often shows their attraction with the body in movement.

A man in a suit next to two women in the designer organization.
Gernreich poses with two models presenting its designsPicture: United Archives International/Imageo

‘Winter or summer, man or woman, everyone will wear the same clothes’

Garnirich was ahead of his time. While homosexuality was still a criminal crime in the US, he co-established a Mati-ancient Society, one of the first organizations for LGBTQ+ rights in the US.

For Garnrich, fashion was the future unisex, and she established the concept long before promoting quir styles.

In the 1970s, he said, “Clothing will not be identified as ether male or female …

For the 1970 expo in Osaka, he designed on the entire Unisex collection. Their models-women and men did not wear men’s-courts, hairless and makeup.

A white dress in movement by Rudy Gernrich.
Gernreich compositions were often inspired by dance movesPicture: Dreamstime/Imageo

Gernreich freed the nipple

In 1964, Gernrich presented a design that went down as the first Topless Swimsuit: The Monokini of women in history. The stimulating piece, which was covered at the bottom midrif, was shown two straps, in which the breasts were fully exposed.

A black-and-white magazine advertisement features a smiling model, wearing Gerniche's monokini.
Model Joyce Wilis wears Garnarich’s monokini in 1964

Garnrich believed that women should be allowed to show their nipples such as men, and above, that they should be calling shots when they speak of their clothes.

In an interview in 1966, Hair said, “I don’t like women what to wear.”

The designer, who died in 1985, remains a pioneer of the body’s positivity, and his heritage marks are how little has changed around the surrounding discretion – the images of the Instagram sensor female nipples, and society still have sexuality.

Edited by: Elizabeth Granier

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