Where have I seen them before? In March, Korean model Heo Young Jung opened the Louis Vuitton women’s runway with skirts and jumpsuits featuring exaggerated zippers. According to fashion designer Nicolas Ghesquière, this is the largest lightning bolt ever created. The process of enhancing and exaggerating this element forced him to also adjust the size of other garments and details. Essentially, he designed the brand’s summer 2023 collection with zippers.
Fast forward in time and we find ourselves at a preview of the French brand’s 2024 summer collection. Giant lightning bolts no longer appear on clothing… but one blinding bolt of lightning stole the show. Here’s part of Zendaya’s stunning white dress. The results were so impressive that the photo went viral on social media: “Zendaya’s 2023 zip-up dress is a must-see Liz Hurley dress from 1994,” read one tweet, referring to Versace’s nearly 20-year-old design back. Outfits that have changed forever. red carpet fashion concept.
Today’s Louis Vuitton zippers are a nostalgic element from Ghesquière’s first collection, created ten years before he became creative director of the French brand. Now it has been reinterpreted in new dimensions… and its influence certainly resonates. While we might think that lightning has reached its peak, the 2023 and 2024 fashion collections suggest that the trend is simply biding its time. Exposed zippers have reappeared, dotting the Eckhaus Latta or Sukeina collections. They are based on Ghesquière’s creations, but are also popular with brands such as Italian luxury fashion house Marni. In 2010, the company amazed the fashion world by releasing a line of dresses and shirts with exposed zippers. Victoria Beckham gained a reputation as a fashion designer in 2011 when she released her now iconic zip-up dress. Fast forward 12 years and Hollywood stylist Rachel Zoe confirmed the trend’s return in her blog: “Naked zippers are everywhere.”
In fact, the path to success is still long for the humble lightning bolt. This mechanical miracle was created through the efforts of several inventors. However, as writer Mary Bellis of ThoughtCo.com points out, no inventor has been able to convince the public to accept it as part of everyday life. Instead, it was magazines and the fashion industry that turned the novelty zipper into the popular item it is today.
Baylis notes that the story begins with Elias Howe, Jr. (1819–1867), inventor of the sewing machine. In 1851, he received a patent for an “automatic continuous fastening machine for clothing.” But—perhaps due to the success of his other great invention—his lightning bolt prototype was shelved. It would be almost half a century before anyone thought about Howe’s ideas. Chicago inventor Whitcomb Judson introduced a device he called the “Lock Locker” in 1893. It’s designed to seal shoes… but it’s a little tricky.
Finally, in December 1913, Gideon Sundbeck, a Swedish engineer living in Philadelphia, came up with the idea for modern lightning. Sundbeck increased the number of fasteners in the two rows of veneered teeth and managed to connect them with sliding parts. Its “removable closing device” was patented in 1917.
Sundbeck also invented a machine for producing a new type of lightning. But its name – “lightning” – was not invented by him. It comes from BF Goodrich, who decided to install this clasp on their new rubber boots. The sound it makes is “zzzzzzip” – hence the name.
Previously, zippers were used to fasten rubber boots and tobacco pouches. It took nearly two decades to convince the fashion world of the blockbuster potential of this new closure. In the 1930s, the zippered children’s clothing movement began as a way to promote self-sufficiency in young children, since zippers allowed them to dress themselves without much help. Designer Elsa Schiaparelli was an example of surreal design: she was the first to add zippers to her avant-garde dresses. Although her fashion styles were still more conceptual than casual, she helped make them more popular in women’s clothing.
In 1937, the American magazine Esquire conducted a reader survey, which it called “War of the Flies.” The question is which is better: a button or a zipper. The second one won.
just kidding. In fact, there is no such article in the journal’s online archive, which covers all articles since 1933. However, this anecdote has been repeated in many publications… including Esquire magazine itself in 2014. The story “War of the Flies” appears to be a reuse of a line from Lightning: A Study in Novelty (1994). Author: Robert Friedel discusses the marketing efforts of BF Goodrich’s main competitor, Talon.
In the Esquire archives from May 1, 1989, there is an interesting (and true) article written by John Behrendt that specifically discusses zippers: “Zippers were still a novelty in 1932… They are a symbol of the mechanical future and the dehumanization that awaits us. All this”. Bespoke tailors disdained zipper panels as vulgar, while mass-producers argued they were too expensive: a zipper added a dollar to the cost of a pair of trousers; the buttons cost only two cents. That was until 1934, when the Prince of Wales, Duke of York and his second cousin Dickie Mountbatten suddenly began wearing zip-up flies. Subsequently, the zipper was suddenly declared “a new concept in men’s tailoring,” according to the Smithsonian Institution.
After a while, lightning finally captivated the masses with its practicality. Zippers were incorporated into American sailors’ uniforms and became popular as the fashion world began to offer less formal clothing. By the time of World War II, lightning was widely used in Europe and North America. After the war they spread to other parts of the world. The first urban clothing to include this element was the leather jacket. In the 1950s, NASA began creating spacesuits with zippers that could maintain air pressure in the vacuum of space. They were used by astronauts during the Apollo 11 mission, the first moon landing, in July 1969.
Today we can say that lightning is an extremely practical invention. But despite this, his story periodically caused controversy. They were frowned upon in the 1920s and 1930s… especially in women’s clothing. This is because they allow people to get naked faster and therefore stimulate sexual activity. In fact, music director Busby Berkeley took full advantage of the zipper’s amazing hybrid capabilities with his portrayal of a woman in Footlight Parade, cementing the zipper’s subsequent pornographic component. Years later, Madonna embraced the idea by wearing a Jean-Paul Gaultier corset during her 1990 Blond Ambition world tour.
Going back to basics, in the 1940s the zipper moved from the front or side of clothing to the back, thanks to artists like Cristobal Balenciaga. Subsequently, lightning became a common feature in clothing… but, curiously, always only in women’s clothing.
Modern study of this pattern raises the question of why only women’s clothing has a zipper at the back. There are aesthetic considerations, as this type of fastening at the back gives the garment a continuous look from the front, which is especially interesting when working with thin or thick fabrics. But another possible interpretation is that back zippers only existed in women’s clothing because a woman would move from her parents’ house to her husband’s house simply because she needed help getting dressed and undressed.
Journalist Celeste Headley (author of We Need to Talk: How to Have Conversations That Matter) wrote an interesting reflection on this issue on the self-publishing platform Swaay. She spoke about the freedom that women enjoyed in clothing, which each era afforded them. For example, a zipper on the back may reflect the patriarchy of how women should dress.
“My body has four sides, and three of them are perfect for seeing the zipper, grabbing it, and zipping it up. So why? Why in God’s name do tailors insist on zipping up one side of my body?” body, if I don’t do extreme yoga, I won’t be able to see it and won’t be able to touch it? This is a feminist issue for me.”
Headley continued: “Do men’s clothing have zippers and buttons at the back? Is there a single piece of men’s clothing that has a zipper at the back? No! Only women’s clothing requires their help to put it on. This is a continuation of discrimination against single women.”
To this day, there are still gender differences when it comes to zippers on clothing. In women’s fashion they are usually covered with the left hand, and in men’s fashion – with the right. This is because this tradition began long before the zipper, when women’s buttons were intended to be worn by other people.
Lightning has also entered popular culture. Marlon Brando (The Wild Ones, 1953) and James Dean (Rebel Without a Cause, 1955) created tough, rugged medieval men… all thanks to an embellished zip-up motorcycle jacket.
Twenty years later, lightning raises the dust again. In 1971, the Rolling Stones released their iconic album Sticky Fingers with cover art designed by Andy Warhol. The original idea, shot by Warhol’s art collective Factory, featured a close-up of a man (presumably Mick Jagger) wearing very tight, open jeans with the zipper undone. But such covers are very expensive to produce and can damage the vinyl. In the end, all that was left were photos of the packaging. The image caused a scandal: it was censored in some countries for obscene content, leading to the development of an alternative cover.
Check if the clothes you are wearing (pants, jacket or bag) have zippers. You’ve seen the letters YKK, right? But this carving is not witchcraft. The abbreviation in English means “Yoshida Kogo Kabushiki” or “Yoshida Manufacturing Corporation”. This is the name of the company founded in 1934 by Japanese manufacturer Tadao Yoshida. Today, the company produces more than 1.2 million miles of zippers per year, or about 7 billion zippers (according to Forbes). Almost two centuries after the original lightning was invented, it continues to be popular.
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Post time: Nov-23-2023