1920s. Mademoiselle Chanel decides to let herself be "browned" in Deauville. Absolute scandal.

At the time, we barely discover the benefits of heliotherapy (cure of light) to treat tuberculosis patients. The beach ? Reserved for sea baths and, please, coiffed. The chic of shock: to have the white complexion, considered as the ultimate of the distinguished. The caramel sun of the sardine fisherman, no thanks: too vulgar, judge the aristocracy on the run, the bare toe touching the warm water.

But Coco does not care: she loves the intoxication of outdoor life and assumes it in jersey. Long live short hair and freedom ... to burn. Because we only have the water of Chaldea Jean Patou, a refined fragrance oil that contains no filter. It was not until 1935 that Eugène Schueller (founder of the future L'Oréal group) launched the Amber Solar line, which protects the skin from sunburn. The slow conquest of tanning begins.

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1956: the bronze body dethrones the alabaster body

A year later, the Popular Front creates, in millions of copies, the "paid-leave", which ejects values ​​guided by decency as quickly as he undresses on the sand, abandoned ...

Later, in the middle of the fifties, Roger Vadim's famous "And God ... created the woman" buries the one-piece jersey for a time. Brigitte Bardot appears tanned, dressed in a vichy bikini, and enters the legend by unveiling his ... navel. The French women rushed into the breach to emulate the sexy icon of the New Wave and, a little later, Ursula Andress out of the water in "James Bond against Dr. No" ...

Sign of the times, a tanned Barbie doll and bikini is published . Then? Place to the suggestive imagination with the years of "liberation", still under the control of censorship. Romy Schneider and Alain Delon have an inhuman eroticism in "La piscine" (1969). A libertarian and community wave sweeps Europe. The Flower Power, from California in the luggage of the Beach Boys and other beach girls, rings on our doorstep.

With the contraceptive pill, love is free , the senses too. Taste, smell and touch, once vulgar, are at the heart of new concerns. The tan is energetic, tonic, indispensable. Milking fat, olive oil and even reflective cardboard ... all accelerators are good. Self-tanners included. "Do not be a pale face! Urges Coppertone advertising.

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Here we are: the bronze body has dethroned the alabaster body. Why this craze? " Lying in the sun is a regressive pleasure . It can be compared to that of lover in a hot bath, "says David Demann, founder of the emo-behavioral analysis.

" The sun allows us to synthesize vitamin D , says Luc Sulimovic, president of the Syndicat des dermatologues et vénéréologues de France. It boosts our metabolism. Solar pipes can cause addiction, just like tobacco. A pleasure that is both energizing and regressive. What to add to ...

80s: monokini, topless and tanga

1981: "On September 2nd, I take off the top" (then, the following week, the bottom). The Avenir poster group's ad campaign, showing a girl undressing in a three-part teasing, is a huge success. This scripting of the body cut in pieces is unpublished and marks the spirits. "Thanks to the tan, you draw yourself a natural and ephemeral tattoo", analyzes the philosopher of the body Bernard Andrieu. The worry is to tan in the geometrical figure of skin drawn by the jersey. Moreover, during the 80s, she becomes unsightly, almost immodest.

Down with the demarcations! And to eliminate them before arriving on the beach, the UV cabins are stormed . Having a tanned complexion all year round is the social adornment of success. Behind this new "social skin" are making new codes, just as draconian as the previous ones, and which mutate quickly. We are entering hedonism, the spearhead of the elite. The bling-bling is getting closer: in winter, we "go far away". The tabloids are covered with stolen pictures of topless stars at Christmas at the end of the world. Charter tourism explodes. Nudity is now hidden under the hidden, private, still white parts.

In less than ten years, the bikini becomes mono, the topless is essential, then the tanga , which is rolled to erase any impression of panties. What hide these pieces of fabric that shrink like a skin of sorrow? The woman is slim, epileptic . Sea, sex and sun. Eros takes the power. Youth, thinness and sex appeal set themselves apart in beauty dictates. The brazilian thong is the apotheosis and the high point of this vast movement of liberation of the bodies.

In this race for emancipation, Western women have stripped themselves in a giant striptease. The body becomes the tool of self-esteem. " The tan becomes a narcissistic prescription ," says Bernard Andrieu. This trend finds its ultimate expression in the transgressions of the chic porn of the 2000s. Eroticism becomes obsolete vis-a-vis the representations of the tanned body and free from any obstacle, even moral. Sexualisation is trivialized and sun lovers are legion.

Patrick Demarchelier / Conde Nast / Getty Images

1990: the sun becomes danger

This flamboyant era had the merit of blowing up some taboos. But to believe that you can change color without changing your skin is a decoy. "The boxed sun booths are tombs for the skin," says Dr. Sulimovic. They are finally banned in Brazil and Australia. France is very late on this subject, he laments. Only UVA cabs are banned from us, but the danger is real. "

The danger. That's what ruined the pleasure. Fifty years of sunny weather, and the first figures are falling: a study shows that the number of melanomas tripled between 1980 and 2005, reaching 11,176 new cases in France in 2012.

Between excessive artificial sun exposure and exposure without adequate protection, the curve of skin cancer has exploded for ten years. Back all! The sun, our providential friend, becomes a potential killer. The result is a paradoxical injunction, where several dogmas come together and collide: adepts and addicts, and those who apply the precautionary principle.

BSIP / Getty Images

The pharmaceutical and cosmetic industry has understood and anticipated the risk. The words "total screen", "SPF" and "waterproof" are entered in everyday language. Sun creams have become technology concentrates.

With two main trends: those who conscientiously display anti-UV armor and those who try to tame the sun, preparatory capsules (and salvating light skin) included.

In short, we are used to prevention all the hair, hammered in campaigns that end up convincing us.

2010: the aristocrats of ecology

Today, we are at the heart of a global awareness. After having titillated our guilt, we are urged to wear anti-UV clothing, to "preserve our sun capital", with schedules and scores, as on a marine weather. The happiness of frying in the sun is now considered unconscious, degrading for the planet, anti-ecological.

We are presented with the addition. And it is salty: twenty tons of sunscreen spilled each year are polluting our oceans and whitewash corals ... This is good: the diaphanous complexion, the nude takes over. As if the model of virginal beauty of our grandmothers came back in force, after making a little tour at "Les bronzés".

Moreover, on the catwalks, this year, lingerie and swimwear seem straight out of the fifties: body, corset and breeches came back. The reasoned whiteness will she succeed in dethroning the sunny good looks? "The aristocrats of ecology form a growing community. They stand out by re-privatizing their bodies and sulking the sun. Reintroducing the paleness and modesty allows them to revive desire, away from the artifices of the sun and veiling nakedness to the eyes, "concludes Bernard Andrieu.

In these trendsetteurs, little chance to see a piece of breast this summer ... But let's open our eyes: the labs surely concoct a response to the precautionary principle. A breakthrough innovation can change everything!