Everyday, we use this innovation with out second thought. We use it when we are getting dressed, to help keep us warm, and when we lug objects around in bags where ever it may be. What is this object? The zipper. It has helped make dressing ourselves so much easier and faster, and also made it easier to carry around objects in bags. The creation of the zipper wasn’t just by one man, it took a couple different endeavors to finally create the zipper we know today. And though the idea of the zipper took a while to catch on, when it finally did, it spread everywhere and was loved by everyone.
The idea that was the grandfather to the zipper was the “Automatic, Continuous Clothing Closure”. Unlike the zipper we know today, the Automatic Continuous Clothing Closure had no slider, but instead clasps that moved freely along the edges of the joined materials, with each clasp holding two sides together. The clasps were all connected by a string, that when pulled tautly, would cause the clasps to be spread evenly. The only problem was that if you pulled on one side, the clasps would all go to that side, which basically opened the device, making it unpractical and therefore, obsolete.(1)(See Figure A) It was created by the same man who invented the sewing machine, Elias Howe, who received a patent for it in November 25, 1851. Oddly, he never pursued marketing his invention to close clothes, but that was possibly due to the success of his sewing machine.
However fourty-two years later on August 29, 1893, a new clothing closure was created and patented. This new invention, which was very similar to the “Automatic Continuous Clothing Closure” was called the “Clasp Locker”. This Clasp Locker was more like the modern day zipper with the slider, except that the clasps were different. This model was created using the Hook-and-eye principle in which there was a slider that when moved up, would bring the hook through the eye, and were fastened into place unlike the Automatic Continuous Clothing Closure.(2)(See Figure B) It was created by Whitcomb Judson, an inventor who had created numerous objects including the Pneumatic Street Railway. The Clasp Locker was originally created because Judson had a friend who had a stiff back because of his boots.(4) In the 1890’s, boots had to be hooked or buttoned if they didn’t have lengthy laces and were therefore considered tiresome business by many people.(6)
Though the Clasp locker did work, it was somewhat clumsy and frequently jammed.(10) Judson created a company called Universal Fastener along with his business associate Lewis Walker to try and market his invention. The clasp locker was first publicly displayed at the World’s fair held in Chicago in 1893, though it met very little commercial success and was largely ignored by they public. For the next 12 years, the Universal Fastener Company didn’t have much business until 1905, when the clasp lockers were simplified, but weren’t quite there. This simplified version, called the Judson C-curity Fastener, was marketed towards women. It was for skirts and dresses but was bulky and complex to use and install, which made it unpractical and also unpopular.(5)
Fortunately for them, they received a change of luck when they hired swedish immigrant Gideon Sundback, an electrical engineer, who had an eye for the plant managers daughter. Sundback soon invented the Plako fastener, which was a more secure version of Judson’s original design. However, the plako fastener was still unreliable and not flexible enough to maintain closed when bent or twisted. Though, the income they did manage to make by traveling salesmen kept the business going for seven years (1906-1913).(7) During this time, Sundback ended up marrying the plant managers daughter and Judson died, both in the year 1909.(10) Sadly, Sundback’s wife died during child birth in 1911 which sent him in to a 2 year period where he busied himself with work. In December of 1913, Gideon Sundback came up with what is now known as a zipper, but was patented as the Hookless Fastener. The design that finally allowed the zipper to work was a slider that connected interlocking teeth instead of a hook-and-eye. The key was that clasp had to interlock, instead of having male and female, which made it more reliable and streamline.(3)(See Figure C)
Now that Universal Fastener had a working and practical product, it was time to market it. Through the next couple of years, Walker and Sundback faced many problems with getting their product to sell. Many manufacturers didn’t like the hookless fastener, the women didn’t want to wait for their skirts to be changed from hook-and-eye to hookless fastener, some clothes were made out of country, and many other things stopped them from selling the product to manufacturers. They were faced with problems like this until 1918, where they first tasted success when a young tailor bought the hookless fasteners to make a money belt for the navy, selling around twenty-four thousand of them. Soon the navy and air-force began to deal directly with Universal Fasteners during the time of World War I until the war ended. However, once the war ended the demand for the hookless fasteners died down, yet it did expose thousands of Americans who had fought in the war to this handy novelty.(7)
Next came the B.F. Goodrich Company, which coined the term zipper and really started the slow, but sure journey to becoming a fashion trend. In 1921, B.F. Goodrich Company bought 170,000 fasteners to put on mystic boots.(6) Mystic boots were rubber boots with the fasteners, which must to have been very intriguing and exotic.(5) There are two different ways that the term zipper was made. One way is that they got zip from onomatopoeia, like when you fastened them quickly. The other way is that zip was also a slang word for speed and they adopted that.(6) Either way, the slogan for the boots became “zip ‘er up!”, which eventually led to the term zipper.(9) B.F. Goodrich Company than trademarked the term. However, they ended up losing lawsuits when they tried to sue other companies for using “zipper” on the names of other objects, though, they just had the rights over zipper boots.(7)
Despite the success the zipper had with the boots, they never moved on to any other clothes for about 10 years. They were used solely in boots and in carry cases, mainly tobacco pouches.(9) This was the case until a big campaign tried to replace buttons on kids clothes with zippers in 1933 through 1934. They claimed that with the zippers, the kids could get dressed on their on without their parents help and promoted self-reliance. Nevertheless, these clothes were still more expensive than button up clothes and you have to realize that this was also during the worst part of the great depression, so everyone was trying to be as frugal as possible. Ultimately, the clothes failed because the children wanted to dress like “mommy” and “daddy”, which unfortunately was button clothing.(7)
The story that was the supposed reason that zippers becoming fashionable was that the Duke of Windsor decided to go with a zip on his pants instead of buttons.(7) This decision by the Duke then caused all clothing designers who wouldn’t use the zipper, to just start using it and it just became a huge fashion trend. Howbeit, the real reason that the zipper beat buttons in the 1937 “Battle of the Fly” was due to a couple different things. The first was that the zipper was not uncommon to men as it had subtly come to being used on jackets, boots, and carrying cases. Also, it became fashionable because the French Designers started raving and praising the zipper and its practicality.(7) The last reason is that there were intense magazine campaigns in the ones such as The New Yorker and Esquire. It was even declared the “Newest Tailoring Idea for Men” by Esquire with one main reason being that it excluded “The Possibility of Unintentional and Embarrassing Disarray.”(5) However, they must not have yet experienced forgetting to zip up their fly!
From then on, Zippers were a big hit and almost everyone used them. By 1939 about three hundred million zippers were sold by the many zipper making companies. One of these companies is YYK Co. (Yoshida Kogyo Kabushililaisha), and is now one of the largest zipper producers worldwide if not the largest.(4) By 1950, the annual zipper sales exceed a billion, showing that these zippers only became more popular over time.(7)
However, there is one other invention that is the zippers biggest rival that has not replaced it but is used just as much. It is called Velcro, and was created by Georges de Mestral, a swiss engineer. He first had the epiphany for a new type of fastener in 1941 after he came from a walk and had cockleburs stuck to his pants and decided to look into it. He found that these “spiny” burrs were actually hooks and they stuck to the his jeans. De Mestral took about 10 years to finally perfect his product so that it worked and patented it in September 13, 1955. Initial sales were disappointing because many designers thought that it wasn’t fashionable, just like the hookless fastener. And just like the hookless fastener, Velcro became popular by being used by the government agency, NASA, when it was used in space suits for astronauts in the early 1960’s. After velcro was used by NASA, it spread to ski wear, then to scuba diving, and then to children’s clothing, finally becoming popular and trendy.(8) The development and marketing of Velcro was considerably faster than that of the zipper. However, if the zipper would have never broken that barrier years previous by being totally radical and different than anything we have seen, Velcro may have still been invented but would have had a lot tougher of a time being excepted by society. The reason being was that the zipper opened the minds of people across the world to new ideas and taught them that these radical ideas may seem totally exotic at first, but they are actually very practical and useful.
Today, all three clothing closure devices are still used and popular. The button is used on clothing still, but used for a more formal look and sometimes for pant flies. Zippers are the most popular clothing closure and most common. However, velcro is somewhat popular in children’s clothing, but not as much in adults to the simpleness of using it. Yet velcro has many different purposes as it is used in cable management, recreation, and holding items in place.
It took 20 years to finally create the perfect zipper in which it passed through a few different minds along the way. Even though it took 20 more years to get accepted by the fashion world, it was worth it. It simplified everyone’s life by creating a faster and easier way to get dressed and stay warm. Although Whitcomb Judson never got to see the final product and the impact it’s had on the society, he would be proud of the zipper for saving countless people throughout time and world from a stiff back.
