YKK on Zippers
If you are wearing clothes, you are probably wearing at least one zipper. Look at the little zipper pull tab, and you will most likely find the letters YKK. Have you ever wondered why? I certainly have, so I decided to dedicate my first research column to investigate the history of what we commonly call the zipper. Read on for the fascinating biography of our ubiquitous metal-toothed friend, whose ancestors went by names such as "clasp locker" and "separable fastener."
First, I'll answer the question at hand. "YKK" is found on most zipper pulls in use today. That is not surprising, considering that a corporation called YKK manufactures seven million zippers a day in the U.S. alone! These zippers come in over 1,500 styles and hundreds of colors. YKK started out as a zipper manufacturing company in Japan in 1934 and was founded by Tadao Yashida. The company was named Yoshida Kogyo Kabushikikaisha ("Yoshida Company Limited," roughly translated). There is no zipper in the world big enough for that name, so it was shorted to YKK and stamped onto zipper pulls manufactured by the company. Later on, the company itself also adopted the abbreviated name, and is known today as YKK Corporation. The company website is at ykk.com.
The zipper came about through the genius of several different men and had many different designs before it evolved into the modern day zipper. The earliest mention of a zipper-like device is credited to Elias Howe, the inventor of the sewing machine. He never developed his idea fully and it was forgotten. The man credited with the first incarnation of the zipper is Whitcomb Judson. Judson's "clasp-locker" was displayed at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893. Designed for boots, it was a primitive device and few fairgoers took notice. Gideon Sundback, a Swedish-born engineer, presented a modified version of the device 15 years later, calling it the "hookless fastener." The name "zipper" was first used when the B.F. Goodrich company manufactured a rubber boot in 1923 and used Sundback's "hookless fastener" as a closure. It is rumored that B.F. Goodrich himself coined the term after imitating the sound that it made when he pulled it closed.
The zipper, which had been conceived as a closure for footwear, quickly became popular in other areas. Soon tobacco pouches were sporting zippers. In the 1930s there was a large marketing push in children's clothing and by the 1940s zippers had overtaken buttons as the chief closure for men's trousers. Of course, a discreet flap was added to hide the trouser zippers, and the "fly" was born.
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