One-piece Swimsuit Emoji

A one-piece swimsuit, the garment that started a revolution on a Boston beach in 1907 and is now quietly outselling bikinis in some categories. 🩱 was added to Unicode in 2019 alongside 🩲 briefs and 🩳 shorts as part of a push for less gendered clothing emojis. Before 2019, the only swimwear emoji was 👙 bikini, which reads as inherently feminine and occasionally suggestive.

In texting, 🩱 is the low-key swim emoji. It says "pool day" or "swim practice" without any of the flirty overtones that 👙 can carry. Parents text it about kids' swim lessons. Swim teams use it in group chats. People reach for it when 👙 feels like too much.

The one-piece itself has a more radical origin story than most people realize. In 1907, Australian swimmer Annette Kellerman was arrested at Revere Beach in Boston for wearing a one-piece that showed her arms and legs. At the time, women swam in knee-length wool dresses with bloomers and stockings. Five years later, the one-piece was standard at the 1912 Olympics, the first Games where women competed in swimming.

🩱 follows the same seasonal spike as all swimwear emojis, peaking June through August in the Northern Hemisphere. But its usage profile is distinct from 👙.

On Instagram and TikTok, 🩱 shows up most in swim team and fitness contexts: competitive swimmers, triathlon training, lap swimming. It's the emoji of choice for aquatic sport rather than beach lounging. The #onepieceswimsuit hashtag has millions of posts on TikTok, and try-on hauls for one-pieces regularly compete with bikini content for views.

There's also a growing modesty and body confidence lane. Users who want to post about swimming without the "beach babe" associations of 👙 default to 🩱. It shows up in family vacation posts, kids' swim class updates, and modest fashion communities.

The fashion industry is amplifying this. One-piece sales grew 17% year-over-year in 2024 according to Edited, and Miu Miu's Spring/Summer 2025 collection featured Speedo-inspired one-pieces worn as tops, pushing the garment from pool to runway.

The one-piece swimsuit's origin is a story about women's bodies and who gets to police them.

In the early 1900s, women entered the water in knee-length wool dresses, bloomers, long stockings, and bathing caps. Actual swimming was nearly impossible. Australian competitive swimmer Annette Kellerman, who held multiple world records, refused to accept this. In 1907, she walked onto Revere Beach in Boston wearing a fitted one-piece that showed her arms and legs. She was arrested for indecent exposure.

The judge offered a compromise: she could wear the suit if she wore a full-length cape to the water's edge. But the public conversation had already started. By 1912, women were competing in swimming at the Olympics for the first time, wearing one-pieces. Harper's Bazaar praised Kellerman's designs in 1920, writing that her bathing attire was "distinguished by an incomparable, daring beauty of fit."

The emoji 🩱 was approved in Unicode 12.0 (2019) alongside 🩲 Briefs and 🩳 Shorts. All three were added in the same release that introduced gender-inclusive couples and disability representation emojis. The one-piece gave users a swimwear option that wasn't the bikini: less gendered, less suggestive, more universal.

Approved in Unicode 12.0 (2019) as U+1FA71 ONE-PIECE SWIMSUITU+1FA71 ONE-PIECE SWIMSUIT. Added alongside 🩲 Briefs (U+1FA72U+1FA72) and 🩳 Shorts (U+1FA73U+1FA73). Originally proposed under the name "One-Piece" in the October 2018 draft before being renamed to "One-Piece Swimsuit" in the final release. Proposal document: L2/18-166.

1. 1907Annette Kellerman arrested at Revere Beach, Boston for wearing a one-piece swimsuit that showed her arms and legs
2. 1912One-piece becomes standard at the Olympics as women compete in swimming for the first time
3. 1928Speedo (then Fortitude) introduces the racerback swimsuit, a breakthrough in competitive swim design
4. 2000Speedo launches Fastskin suit mimicking shark skin, reducing drag by ~3% and revolutionizing competitive swimming
5. 2019Emoji approved in Unicode 12.0 as U+1FA71 ONE-PIECE SWIMSUIT alongside briefs and shorts↗
6. 2025Miu Miu's S/S 2025 runway features Speedo-inspired one-pieces worn as tops, pushing the garment from sport to high fashion

Japan: The one-piece swimsuit has a specific cultural identity. The dark navy sukumizu (school swimsuit) is standard in Japanese swimming classes, which are mandatory in most schools. It's deeply embedded in the collective consciousness and frequently referenced in anime and manga. The garment represents school life and sport, not fashion.

Competitive swimming: Globally, the one-piece is the garment of Olympic swimmers, not beachgoers. This gives 🩱 a sporty, athletic connotation that 👙 lacks. The distinction matters: sending 🩱 reads as "I swim" while sending 👙 reads as "beach vibes."

Modest fashion communities: In many Muslim-majority countries and conservative communities, the one-piece (or more covering alternatives like the burkini) is the default swimwear. 🩱 works better than 👙 in these contexts because it signals swimming without the Western beach-culture baggage.

Fashion industry: One-pieces captured 45.35% of women's swimwear revenue in 2024, edging out bikinis. The comeback is driven by cut-out designs, high-leg cuts, and the athleisure crossover, where one-pieces double as bodysuits under everyday clothes.

• •One-pieces captured 45.35% of women's swimwear revenue in 2024, holding the largest single share of the market.
• •Annette Kellerman was arrested at Revere Beach, Boston in 1907 for wearing a one-piece swimsuit that showed her arms and legs.
• •The 1912 Olympics in Stockholm were the first where women competed in swimming, wearing one-piece suits just five years after Kellerman's arrest.
• •Speedo's Fastskin suit (2000) was inspired by shark skin, using tiny ridges to reduce drag by roughly 3%. FINA banned full-body polyurethane suits in 2010 because they were too effective.
• •Japan's sukumizu (school swimsuit) is a dark navy one-piece worn in mandatory swimming classes. It's so culturally embedded that it became a staple trope in anime and manga.
• •One-piece sales grew 17% year-over-year in 2024, outpacing several bikini categories according to retail analytics platform Edited.
• •Miu Miu's S/S 2025 runway featured Speedo-inspired one-pieces worn as tops with pleated skirts, bringing the garment from pool to Paris Fashion Week.

• •Annette Kellerman (1907): Her arrest for wearing a one-piece at Revere Beach became a touchstone moment for women's swimwear freedom and body autonomy.
• •1912 Stockholm Olympics: Women competed in swimming for the first time, wearing one-piece suits. The garment went from scandalous to standard in five years.
• •Speedo Fastskin (2000): The shark-skin-inspired suit changed competitive swimming forever and was so effective that FINA banned full-body versions in 2010.
• •Miu Miu S/S 2025: The luxury fashion house sent Speedo-inspired one-pieces down the Paris runway, worn as tops with formal skirts, legitimizing swimwear as fashion.

• •Codepoint: U+1FA71. No variation selector needed.
• •Shortcodes: :one_piece_swimsuit: (GitHub, Slack). Some platforms use :one-piece_swimsuit: with a hyphen.
• •Added in Unicode 12.0, so not available on older devices (pre-2019). Falls back to a missing glyph box on iOS 12 and earlier.
• •Related emojis: 👙 (U+1F459 BIKINI), 🩲 (U+1FA72 BRIEFS), 🩳 (U+1FA73 SHORTS).

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