First of all, we have to start from the demand side. It is said that at the
end of the 19th century, it was popular in Europe and the United States to wear
long boots of different lengths, some of which were roughly one fist higher than
the ankle (modern day boots are already classified as medium to short), while
some went to near the knee.
Boot merchant at the end of the 19th century
There were two main forms of boot components that acted as this elasticity
transition.
The first was the lacing, and the second was the hook-and-loop button.
The lacing was economical and practical, and was generally preferred by the
common people.
Lace-up boots
The aristocrats, on the other hand, preferred boots with hook-and-loop
buttons because it was more convenient to show off their wealth, and the
hook-and-loop buttons could be decorated with precious metals, as well as
gemstones.
The boots of the dignitaries
So lace-up boots are "mobility scooters", and hook-and-button boots are
"sports cars".
The problem came, the boots are so long, so many buttons, each time to wear
the heel off are at least spend more than half an hour, tired people back pain,
really aristocratic people can still be helped, but if it is the folk follow the
wind people are tired.
So in
, the United States, a mechanical engineer named Whitcomb Judson
(whitcomb judson) in the study of this thing, first invented a device called
"buckle lock", is the predecessor of the zipper.
1891
Tecumseh Judson
The principle of the buckle lock is to slide up and down through a buckle
two male and female metal components will be "hooked" together, also equivalent
to buckle together, the core selling point is: no longer need to manually buckle
one by one.
Jadson invented the snap lock
In November of that year, Jadson submitted his "snap-lock" design
description to the U.S. Patent Office, hoping to apply for a patent for the
The invention, the first description of which is: can be used as a shoe buckle.
The second is that it can be applied to corsets, gloves, mail bags and
other flexible parts that need to be removed and linked at any time.
Patent Application Documents for Historical Snap-Lock Inventions
Unfortunately, the first application was not approved and was only
pending, because there were already many people who had worked on this and had
submitted applications for patents.
This kind of thing is common in invention circles, and as history and
civilization continues to advance, there are different people thinking about
almost the same issues, even if they are thousands of miles away.
In the case of our brand design, we often run into creative "collisions" of
registered trademarks, because it is easy to work in a logical direction.
But Judson did not give up, went home and continued to study the follow-up,
optimize many details, and more specific to the application of shoes, submitted
a revised version in
, and in August
again submitted a new version
finally through the patent application.
1892
1893
Patent Application Documents for Historical Snap-Lock Inventions
In fact, in addition to this "buckle lock", Jadson's roughly
years of
mechanical engineer career a total of
railroads, motors, machinery and other
aspects of the invention of the patent, in addition he also served as an
agricultural company machinery products salesman, social experience.
Therefore, after obtaining the patent for the invention of "buckle lock",
he immediately set up a company with his friends for production, planning to
cooperate with luggage, clothing and boot factories.
16
30
The buckle lock was first applied to the boot product
However, the road to commercialization of the buckle lock is not smooth, because
the quality of the product is not too good, or strictly speaking, the invention
is not perfect.
Combined with the "buckle lock" produced products sold to the market, in
in addition to being complained about being too bulky, but also often appear to be unaffordable
to pull, cannot pull, or in unexpected circumstances suddenly collapsed such a
situation.
Therefore, after a period of experimentation in this category of boots,
manufacturers gradually lost interest in this invention, especially clothing
companies first quit, after all, suddenly collapsed such things happen in the
clothing is too embarrassing.
Buckle lock that is constantly being improved
Judson worked with friends until
, during which time he tried his best
to improve the "snap-lock" product, but there were not many breakthroughs, so
the road to commercialization did not take off, and by then he was close to
years old and slowly gave up on the project.
By 1902, he died in Michigan at the age of
.
1905
Transformation success
60
At this point, our modern-day zipper has not yet made its debut.
Four years after Judson&1909;s death, a Swedish-American electrical engineer
named Gideon Sundback took up the baton in 63 and continued to work on the
commercialization of the "snap-lock".
39
Gideon Senbeck
1913
Senbeck was once an employee of the famous Westinghouse Electric
Corporation, and then went to Chicago&
;s General Fastener Company as an engineer,
the "fastener" is in fact today&#
;s zipper.
During his time at General Motors, it is said that Senbeck spent five years
researching and optimizing Jadson&
;s "fasteners" to make them smaller, more
refined and more consistent in quality.
Senbeck eliminated the "hook-and-eye" approach and adopted the "bite"
instead.
The two sides of a male and a female "teeth" look exactly the same, through
the design of a modified "Y-line" channel slide will be each other Yin and Yang
"bite".
39
The operation principle diagram of zipper
39
39
And the number of teeth in the past
cm for a unit of length increased to
, in addition to the Senbeck will also be combined with the two sides of the strong fabric fabric, easy to be combined with other shoes and clothes.
This makes the original "buckle lock" power greatly increased, the value of the straight-line climb, and more critically, Senbeck also developed a mass production process, it can be said that everything is around the "cash" direction.
Senbeck's
;s modified "fastener" was born
2.5
After several links of improvement, the name "fasteners" is no longer available
applicable, but changed to the aforementioned "fasteners", the
complete point is "separable fasteners"
10
Patent application file for "detachable fasteners"
39
It was under this name that Sambeck applied for a patent in
, while the
name "zipper" came from a famous partner company, the B.F. Goodrich Company.
In
, Sambeck collaborated with the company and used its "detachable
fasteners" on their rubber boots.
1917
1923
New rubber boots combined with zippers promotional posters
One of the company’
;s sales department employees had a bright idea and
suggested that the name be changed to "Zipper" because Zip means "quick" and its
pronunciation is similar to the sound made by a zipper when it moves.
The Chinese translation is "Zipper", and the name has been used ever
since.
Make a name for yourself in the world
The improved and constantly improved zipper is not only easy to apply and
compact, but also has good linking effect and strong biting ability to resist
large pulling force from both sides.
39
More and more cooperation opportunities for zipper products
But the zipper this product&
;s luck is really general, although one after
another with a lot of boot factory and garment factory cooperation, but just
can&
;t fire up, has been in still live on, but can&
;t make any profit in a
depressed state.
The good thing is that Senbeck is young, but
years old in
, the fart
big shares sink, strong will, patience and loneliness, sit on the bench, until
the Second World War, an incidental thing to make this product turn around.
It is said that at that time a Paris Concorde unfortunately crashed, the
reason is that the pilot&39;s clothes on the button fell into the aircraft
parts.
39
39
43
1923
Place de la Concorde in Paris, France
39
This incident attracted the attention of the U.S. military, in order to
prevent such things from happening on their own aircraft, the U.S. military in
one fell swoop with Senbeck&
;s factory to purchase tens of thousands of sets of
zippers to make zipper form of military uniforms.
U.S. Army World War II zipper uniforms
In this way, Senbeck has turned around and other countries have followed suit, with orders flying in like snowflakes.
Suddenly thought of some masks factories that were on the verge of closing down at the end of 39, I guess their mood is the same.
Zipper has since become a small part of clothes, bags, shoes and other objects closely linked, and even changed the trend of the fashion industry, such as the existence of some classic rider trench coat was born because of the zipper.
Cool rider windbreaker
But today the world’
;s number one zipper company is not in the United
States, but the YKK Group, which was born in Japan in
. . . .
2020
Famous YKK zippers, many luxury brands have cooperated with them
Senbeck lived until
at the age of39. . . . In1934, he was inducted into
the "American Inventors Hall of Fame" because of the great product Zipper, and
Google dedicated its homepage to commemorate the
nd anniversary of his
birth.
1954
74
2006 Google Memorial Senbeck’132;s homepage
2012
39
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