There are few sounds in sewing as satisfying as a zip closing in one smooth pull. We take it utterly for granted, and yet the zipper is one of the youngest things in your sewing box. Buttons go back five thousand years, but a zipper you would recognise is barely a hundred years old. It took several inventors, a good deal of failure, and a pair of rubber boots to give us the fastener we now use without a second thought.
A Fastener Before Its Time
The first attempt belongs to Whitcomb Judson, an American inventor who showed a clasp locker at the 1893 Chicago World Fair through his Universal Fastener Company. It was an ingenious idea, a row of hooks and eyes worked by a slider, but it was fiddly, unreliable, and prone to popping open at the worst moment. The public was not impressed, and the clever notion quietly stalled.
Gideon Sundback Perfects It
The breakthrough came from Gideon Sundback, a Swedish American electrical engineer who joined the company and set about fixing its flaws. By 1913 he had thrown out the hooks and eyes in favour of interlocking teeth, little cups and scoops that meshed together neatly and pulled apart cleanly. He patented his hookless fastener in 1917, and, just as cleverly, designed the machine that could manufacture it reliably. For the first time the zipper actually worked.
How It Got Its Name
Curiously, Sundback never called his invention a zipper. That name came from a customer. In 1923 the B. F. Goodrich company used the fastener on a line of rubber galoshes and loved the brisk zip sound it made sliding shut, so they called the boots Zippers. The name was far catchier than hookless fastener, it stuck to the device rather than the boots, and the zipper had its name at last.
Into Our Everyday Clothes
Even then, fashion was slow to follow. For years zippers were used mainly on boots, tobacco pouches, and money belts. It took until the 1930s for clothing to embrace them, helped along when childrens clothes were fitted with zips to encourage little ones to dress themselves, and when bold designers began using them openly on garments. Once the menswear trade adopted the zip fly, there was no going back, and the zipper became a wardrobe essential.
The Zipper Today
Today we are spoilt for choice. Sturdy metal zippers still close our jeans and jackets, lightweight nylon coil zippers handle dresses and cushions, moulded plastic zips brave the weather on coats and bags, and the invisible zipper hides itself away in a side seam so only the pull shows. Each one is a direct descendant of Sundbacks neat little scoops.
Sewing With Zippers
For a fastener that took decades to perfect, the zipper is wonderfully approachable once you have sewn a few. If the invisible kind makes you nervous, our step by step video makes it simple, and an inexpensive invisible zipper foot does most of the work for you:
And when you would like an easy, useful project to practise on, you cannot beat a simple lined zipper pouch:
It is lovely to think that every zip you sew carries a little of that long, stubborn history of invention. If you enjoyed this, you might like its companion piece on the much older history of buttons, stock up on a handy assortment of zippers for your stash, and find your next make in our free sewing patterns and sewing tips.
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