Edible underwear is a candy product which is made into a form and can function as

underwear Undergarments, underclothing, or underwear are items of clothing worn beneath outer clothes, usually in direct contact with the skin, although they may comprise more than a single layer. They serve to keep outer garments from being soiled o ...

but which is edible. The product was invented by David Sanderson and Lee Brady in 1975 when they formed a company Cosmorotics, Inc. to manufacture and market the

product Product may refer to: Business * Product (business), an item that serves as a solution to a specific consumer problem. * Product (project management), a deliverable or set of deliverables that contribute to a business solution Mathematics * Produ ...

under the name "Candypants, the original 100% edible underwear". At first the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office denied their application for a patent on the basis that the idea of candy and pants were incompatible, but later granted the application and within weeks hundreds of thousands of pairs were

manufactured Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer to a rang ...

and

distributed Distribution may refer to: Mathematics *Distribution (mathematics), generalized functions used to formulate solutions of partial differential equations *Probability distribution, the probability of a particular value or value range of a varia ...

out of the company's food manufacturing plant in

Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. "Candypants" was promoted as lingerie in clothing shops, major department stores, motorcycle shops, candy stores and chic emporiums. It was considered naughty innocence. The press found it an outrageous delight and news coverage pushed edible underwear into the national and worldwide limelight. The product continues also to be sold through

sex shop A sex shop is a retailer that sells products related to adult sexual or erotic entertainment, such as sex toys, lingerie, pornography, and other related products. An early precursor of the modern sex shop was a chain of stores set up in th ...

s. Candypants featured in two separate

U.S. Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

battles for

First Amendment First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...

rights. Edible underwear, as "Candypants", was used by the defense for ''

Screw A screw and a bolt (see '' Differentiation between bolt and screw'' below) are similar types of fastener typically made of metal and characterized by a helical ridge, called a ''male thread'' (external thread). Screws and bolts are used to fa ...

'' magazine in their fight to stay on the news stands despite their content and then again by the prosecution to attempt to shut down the late night

public-access television Public-access television is traditionally a form of non-commercial mass media where the general public can create content television programming which is narrowcast through cable television specialty channels. Public-access television was creat ...

cable TV Cable television is a system of delivering television programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This contrasts with broadc ...

show ''

Midnight Blue Midnight blue is a dark shade of blue named for its resemblance to the apparently blue color of a moonlit night sky around full moon. Midnight blue is identifiably blue to the eye in sunlight or full-spectrum light, but can appear black unde ...

'' in New York City. At the same time author

Jerzy Kosinski Jerzy is the Polish version of the masculine given name George. The most common nickname for Jerzy is Jurek (), which may also be used as an official first name. Occasionally the nickname Jerzyk may be used, which means "swift" in Polish. Peopl ...

in his novel ''Pinball'' referred to it as "the essence of American freedom" on the ''

Late Night with David Letterman ''Late Night with David Letterman'' is an American late-night talk show hosted by David Letterman on NBC, the first iteration of the ''Late Night'' franchise. It premiered on February 1, 1982, and was produced by Letterman's production company ...

'' show. In 1989, edible underwear was listed by ''

People A person (plural, : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of pr ...

'' magazine as being one of the 434 names and events that define pop culture.''

'', March 6, 1989

References

Lingerie Patented foods American confectionery Economy of Chicago {{confection-stub