Beneath the Sun of the Regime: The Bikini and Modernity in Francoist Spain

"Beneath the Sun of the Regime: The Bikini and Modernity in Francoist Spain" is an exhibition project that revisits the visual construction of the tourist myth of Francoist Spain through the case of Benidorm. Using archival photographs, press material, and recovered objects, the exhibition examines the regime’s projected image of modernity and the contradictions behind it, from the control of the female body to the appearance of openness toward Europe. The bikini becomes a symbol of this ambiguity: tolerated as a sign of modern life, yet also subject to moral condemnation. The exhibition traces how this simple swimsuit concentrated the tension between censorship and social restraint that marked Spain’s developmental period, while also exploring the moral climate, the tourist boom, and the fascination and scandal surrounding the arrival of the first European tourists on the beaches of Alicante. It shows how the regime used the imagery of sun and beach to present an outward image of a modern, open country while maintaining strong mechanisms of control.