ABSTRACT
In sport, over the years, Brazilian women have earned the title of icons of feminine emancipation. In particular, Maria Ester Bueno, displaying a superb technique, won several Wimbledon championships, until she was known as 'the Wimbledon Queen'. Drawing the world's attention not only to tennis but to fashion, she surprised and delighted the public with her short skirts, which excited the world of sport, and are still in vogue today. At a time when the swimmer Violeta Coelho Neto wore a 'modest' swimming costume, Maria Lenk with her daring and low-cut swimsuits, and Yara Vaz, wearing bikinis on the southern coast on Rio de Janeiro beaches, were also breaking new ground by ignoring cultural taboos not only in sport but in their everyday lives. The feminine priorities in those days confirmed what A. Prost and G. Vincent would assert in the 1990s: 'Care of one's body is not only legitimate. To a woman, being beautiful becomes a true obligation.'!
