Infant bodysuit
type of infant clothing
An infant bodysuit or onesie (American English) is a garment designed to be worn by babies much like a T-shirt; they are distinguished from T-shirts by an extension below the waist, with snaps that allow it to be closed over the crotch. The purpose of the opening at the crotch is to facilitate access to the infant's diaper as well as preventing the garment from riding up the infant's body and exposing skin. Like T-shirts, infant bodysuits come in a wide variety of designs and may be worn as undergarments or as outer shirts.
The modern infant bodysuit was first designed in Chile in the early 1950s by Susana Duniau, a French-born Chilean seamstress. After giving birth to twin daughters, Duniau created a practical one-piece garment with snap fasteners to hold cloth diapers in place while keeping the baby warm. The design, locally known as the pilucho, quickly gained popularity in Chile and was later exported to the United States and Europe through the clothing brand Opaline. Because Chile at the time lacked intellectual property laws, Duniau's husband, Enrique Brito, registered the patent in the United States. The pilucho became the direct precursor of what is now globally known as the infant bodysuit or onesie.
Synonyms
Other names of this outfit include onesies (a registered trademark often used in the United States as if it were generic), creepers, diaper shirts, or snapsuits. If the bodysuit is sleeveless, it may also be referred to as a vest (British English only).
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This entry incorporates text from “Infant bodysuit” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.