Photos prove Montreal, not Paris, invented the bikini

 According to conventional wisdom, the bikini - ie: two piece bathing suit - was invented by Louis Reard at a fashion show in Paris on July 5, 1946.
   However, these photos suggest that such suits were already common in Montreal by 1943 and possibly

earlier.
   These photos, taken from the Conrad Poirier collection, show Montreal women all clad in the two-piece suit in photos dated 1943.
   The pic at the top left shows a beauty pageant contestant happily modeling the two-piecer along with several
others clad in the same dual attire in the background. (Would be curious to know where in Montreal that was shot. Anybody?)
  So unless the dates on these photos are all wrong, there appears to be photographic proof that we got to the bikini well before Paris ever thought of the concept.
  Poirier would have been about 30 or 31 when these photos were taken midway through WWII.
   So while other guys were duking it out with the Krauts on muddy battlefields under skies darkened with deafening killer bombs and artillery, Poirier was back here doing his civic duty by chronicling their sisters and girlfriends.