YPSILANTI, Mich. (AP) – Around here, history lives on with people’s underwear.

Two artists are selling hot pink underwear screen-printed with the word “Ypsipanty” as part of an effort to keep alive the city’s historical place in the underwear business.

Linette Lao and Mark Maynard have sold nearly 200 pair of Ypsipanties. “We were just thinking about Ypsi-positive things that we could make,” Maynard told The Ann Arbor News. To them, he said, the idea was “fun and playful without being disrespectful.”

“And it drew on Ypsi’s history as an underwear capital,” he said. Ypsilanti, about 30 miles west of Detroit, was home to the Ypsilanti Underwear Co. From its factory on the banks of the Huron River, the company at one time helped link the city’s name with underwear.

The company got attention for its marketing strategies, including placing a 15-foot painting of a woman dressed in a Ypsilanti-made union suit to be seen by passengers on the Michigan Central Railroad.

Ypsilanti Underwear operated for more than 50 years in the late 1800s and the early 1900s, according to the Ypsilanti Historical Society.

Ypsipanties seller Jennifer Albaum said people approach her regularly and tell her they are wearing them. “What other time can you tell people what underwear you’re wearing? It’s awesome,” Albaum said.

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