Figure 1.--This is Jean-Jacques on his 6th birthday in 1949. Notice the flat-top tricycle. He wears a blousecwith elasticized waistc romper pants. The French call this culotte bloomer because they are so similar to culottes (short pahts). These look like romper pants that mother has knitted.

Rompers in French are best translated as "barboteuse", but there are many related garments with baloon/puff pants. True barboteuse are one-piece suits with the bloomer-like short pants and elasticized leg openings, usually back buttoning. The bloomer short pants by themselves with suspender or elasticized waists are called "culotte bloomer" and not barboteuse. Commonly they had suspender straps in the same fabric as the pants or bib fronts, similar to standard short pants outfits. The term culotte is used because they were so similar to short pants except for the romper/bloomer puff pants. Culotte bloomers were also made with plain elasticized waists. We see both play and dressy versions. Dressy "culotte bloomers" were commonly worn with fancy blouses and referred to as a "culotte bloomer costume". They might be worn by older boys than wore the classic one-piece barboteuse. We note boys up to about 6-7 years old wearing them. We are not sure yet about the chronology, but see these culotte bloomers during the 1940s and 50s. We are still working on the Frenc terms. A reader writes, "Small accuracy. Around 1951, the mothers called this kind of pants ' Barboteuse ". The word bloomer isn't still employed about boy garments. These rompers model could have suspenders or were butonned at the blouse with the help of two buttons in the front and two buttons at the back. They were also buttoned at the crotch by three or for little buttons. In 1958 one began to see outfits composed of a blouse and a romper and called ' Costume bloomer '."