Body Suit

I had an interesting conversation with my sister-in-law during Thanksgiving.  It gave us pause and caused us to reflect on some of the choices that we had made in the 1990s.  Choices that seemed like a good idea at the time, but that we have now come to regret and feel embarrassed to mention.

You see, kids, sometime in the 90s, someone thought they had a brilliant idea.  A far-fetched notion that could change fashion forever.  An idea so crazy, that it just HAD to work.

Someone, somewhere, decided that if you took the effortless pragmaticism of this:

For real, this is a cool onesie

And married it to the chic classic look of this:

You would hit a gold mine by creating this:

Not just for the gentlemen of Dancing with the Stars, ladies.

The Body Suit.

It made sense, I guess.  Women everywhere cheered.  Their collared shirts being fitted and not as long as men's shirts, this answered the problem of, as a lady, having to constantly tuck their shirt in at the office.  The glass ceiling had been broken by a glorified onesie!  We were now the equal to men!

There were, of course, some alternatives to the "Lady of the Office" look.  In high school, my coeds and I were known to strut the hallways in styles much like this:

OBVIOUSLY we had pants on, though.

What could cause such a fabulous concept to lack staying power?  Well, I can't be certain, but for me, it was a problem with...well..."the snaps".  You see, as much as one would like to fool oneself into thinking that one was wearing a very practical piece of clothing, at the end of the day one was wearing a, well, one-sie.  And, being a onesie, there were three snaps.  Three snaps...down...there.  So much fun when you have to go to the bathroom but must first fiddle with The Snaps.

And so mortifying when you bend down too quickly and hear a triple snapping sound only to realize that the darned thing has freed itself from your nether regions and will now start flapping around in the breeze if you do not make it to a bathroom fast to remedy the situation.  And, honestly, the unsnapped onesie on display outside the pants is just not as adorable on a 15 year old as it is on a 1 year old.

Sadly, the trend could not last.  Unless, apparently, you shop at Chadwick's.  For the rest of us, we just need to constantly...um...adjust ourselves...for lack of wanting to think of a better term.  My only hope is that some brilliant mind doesn't try combining a GAP collared shirt with this truly appalling thing I found on Google images:

There needs to be limits to the crafty, make-at-home baby clothing trend.  Someone make a limit.