Having seen astronauts storing food pouches on walls, children's clothing makers came on board. Scuba and marine gear followed soon after. The next major use hook-and-loop saw was with skiers, who saw the similarities between their outerwear and that of the astronauts, and thus saw the advantages of a suit that was easier to don and doff. However, this reinforced the view among the populace that hook-and-loop was something with very limited utilitarian uses. Ī number of Velcro Corporation products were displayed at a fashion show at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York in 1959, and the fabric got its first break when it was used in the aerospace industry to help astronauts maneuver in and out of bulky space suits. At the time, the fasteners looked like they had been made from leftover bits of cheap fabric, and thus were not sewn into clothing or used widely when it debuted in the early 1960s. Partly due to its cosmetic appearance, though, hook-and-loop's integration into the textile industry took time. ĭe Mestral obtained patents in many countries right after inventing the fasteners, as he expected an immediate high demand. of New Hampshire, and Velcro Sales of New York, marketing the "zipperless zipper" in the United States. The new fastening device is in many ways potentially more revolutionary than was the zipper a quarter-century ago." Ī Montreal firm, Velek, Ltd., acquired the exclusive right to market the product in North and South America, as well as in Japan, with American Velcro, Inc. In 1957 he branched out to the textile center of Manchester, New Hampshire in the United States.Ĭolumnist Sylvia Porter made the first mention of the product in her column Your Money's Worth of August 25, 1958, writing, "It is with understandable enthusiasm that I give you today an exclusive report on this news: A 'zipperless zipper' has been invented – finally. Within a few years he obtained patents and began to open shops in Germany, Switzerland, Great Britain, Sweden, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Canada. ĭe Mestral submitted his idea for a patent in Switzerland in 1951, which was granted in 1955. In all, it took ten years to create a mechanized process that worked. Mechanizing the process of weaving the hooks took eight years, and it took another year to create the loom that trimmed the loops after weaving them. He bought a pair of shears and trimmed the tops off the loops, thus creating hooks that would match up perfectly with the loops in the pile. On the verge of giving up, a new idea came to him. Next he found that nylon thread, when woven in loops and heat-treated, retains its shape and is resilient however, the loops had to be cut in just the right spot so that they could be fastened and unfastened many times. However, he had yet to figure out a way to mechanize the process and to make the looped side.
#Heavy duty fashion tape trial
Nylon had only recently been invented, and through trial and error de Mestral eventually discovered that, when sewn under hot infrared light, nylon forms small hook shapes. De Mestral eventually selected nylon, on the reasoning that it does not easily fray or attract mold, is non-biodegradable, and could be produced in threads of varying thickness.
As a result, De Mestral began to explore the use of synthetic fibers, believing that they would provide a more resilient product. However, the cotton frayed and wore out in a relatively short period of time. He did manage to gain the assistance of one weaver, who produced two cotton strips based on De Mestral's designs. ĭe Mestral's proposal was initially rejected by industry leaders when he took his idea to Lyon, which was then a center of weaving. On a scale as small as that of hook-and-loop fasteners, matching up each of these hooks with the corresponding eye is impractical, thus leading to the indeterminate matching. With larger hook-and-eye fasteners, each hook has its own eye.
The other difference is that hook-and-loop has indeterminate match-up between the hooks and eyes. This was needed, because in decreasing the size of the hooks, the strength was also unavoidably lessened, thus requiring more hooks for the same strength.
Firstly, instead of a single-file line of hooks, hook-and-loop fasteners have a two-dimensional surface. Shrinking the hooks led to the two other important differences. Hook-and-eye fasteners have been common for centuries, but what was new about hook-and-loop fasteners was the miniaturisation of the hooks and eyes. The big breakthrough De Mestral made was to think about hook-and-eye closures on a greatly reduced scale.
0 kommentar(er)
