White bikini of Ursula Andress buckles and fittings, and a scabbard on the left side to hold a large knife. The first bikini had been worn at a Paris fashion show in 1946, but in the 1950s the bikini was still seen as something of a taboo. Andress' bikini arrived at a key moment in the history of women's fashion, coming at the "birth of the sexual revolution": the 1960s. In the corresponding scene of the original novel, the character Honeychile Rider wears only a leather belt with a scabbard, and no bikini. Andress designed the bikini along with "Dr. No"s costume designer Tessa Prendergast,
Granny Was a Buffer Girl is only a small part of the book, but it sets the focus on family history. A "buffer girl" was a worker in the Sheffield cutlery industry who used the polishing machinery on steel tableware: a hot and dirty job that required protective clothing. Doherty was inspired by the William Rothenstein painting "Sheffield Buffer Girls", depicting two young women in their work clothes. In the first chapter the narrator is Jess, an 18-year-old girl who is about to leave home to study in France. Her extended family (her father Mike and mother Josie, her grandfathers Jack and Albert, her grandmother