Elegant style icon wardrobe essentials: Ava Gardner in swimwear

Ava Gardner did not just live, she LIVED; she did not love, she LOVED; she did not just enter, she made an ENTRANCE: The first time when she stood in front of a camera, the camera declared its love for her; The first time when she walked around MGM studio, her new home as a new hire, the then already huge star of Hollywood, Mickey Rooney, fell for her; Then more men of Hollywood,  including Frank Sinatra. She became known as "The world's most beautiful animal."

In the film The Barefoot Condessa(1954), Ava Gardner as Maria Vargas, a sultry Spanish dancer, was invited by one of her Latin admirers, Alberto Bravano to his yacht in French Riviera. In one scene, she walked along the yacht in a gold and black cover-up, until she arrived at the front, where she stopped, stood, took off her cover-up, dropped it, revealing her sculpted body in a halter neck black velvet bathing suit with golden fringes. All the eyes of the men there were on her, as they should, as she wanted them to do. That's how Ava Gardner made her ENTRANCE in life.

When even the whole Hollywood was not enough, Ava Gardner packed her suitcase, and made a new entrance across the Atlantics, into Spain, the country with which she fell in love while filming Pandora and The Flying Dutchman(1951) in Costa Brava.

Like Pandora, the society woman she played in the movie, Ava Gardner would watch bull fights and made men fight for her once she was in Spain, and she would drink, dance and swim.  Ava Gardner loved swimming, and with a body of Venus, she could always make an ENTRANCE while putting on a swimsuit, like she did in The Barefoot Condessa.

Ava Gardner in a black one-piece swimsuit, in film The Barefoot Contessa(1954)

Ava Gardner in a black one-piece swimsuit, in film The Barefoot Contessa(1954)

Ava Gardner in a black one-piece swimsuit, in film The Barefoot Contessa(1954)

Ava Gardner in a black one-piece swimsuit, in film The Barefoot Contessa(1954)

Ava Gardner in a black one-piece swimsuit, in film The Barefoot Contessa(1954)