Used to replace shoelaces.

The zipper, which looks inconspicuous and does not cost much, is recognized as one of the most important inventions in the world in the past 100 years because of its revolutionary significance to the clothing industry.

There have always been different opinions about who invented the zipper. Since 1851, people have been filing patent applications for zipper inventions, and the total number of people is said to be more than a thousand. But it was not until 1893 that the first practical zipper appeared - the zipper we use today was developed from that time. Its inventor is American Yudson. The zipper was used on a pair of shoes and was patented by the U.S. government. Shortly thereafter, Youdson recommended the patent to an American entrepreneur named Walker. The next year, Walker established the world's first professional factory for mechanized mass production of zippers in a small town near New York; once its products were put on the market, they became very popular.

In 1904, Walker hired the Swede Alanger as the manager of the factory. Unexpectedly, Alanger quickly turned his back on the customer, expelled Walker from the factory, and hired another man named Sander. Barker's Swedish engineers oversee product design and production. Through Sandback's efforts, the practical value of zippers has reached a new level.

However, the popularity of zippers depends on World War I. In the early years of the war, the U.S. military realized that zippers could greatly improve the speed of dressing soldiers, so they ordered zippers to be sewn on the pockets of military uniforms and the fronts of trousers. This move was immediately welcomed by the war. Welcome from the soldiers. In 1918, the U.S. military installed zippers on 10,000 sets of uniforms for air force pilots. After comparison, after using zippers, the pilots' dressing speed increased by 2/3 compared with before.

In 1923, the ZIPPER brand zipper designed and produced by the American Coldrich Company became the first registered trademark of zipper products protected by law. Since then, traces of zippers have spread all over the world. Statistics from the 1930s showed that more than 600 million zippers were produced in the world every year. After World War II, zippers became more popular.

In 1953, the zipper itself experienced another qualitative leap - a German zipper company introduced a zipper made of plastic for the first time, thus greatly reducing the production cost of the zipper. In 1955, plastic zippers were put on the market in large quantities, allowing more than 40 factories in Germany to produce plastic zippers to gain high profits.

Today, no one has made accurate statistics on how many zippers are produced in the world every year.