The zipper is getting its first major upgrade in 100 years
56 comments
·October 19, 2025behnamoh
> That incremental progress mirrors YKK’s founding philosophy, the “Cycle of Goodness.” The principle—that no one prospers without benefiting others—has supposedly guided the company for decades. It’s visible in its other micro-improvements: corrosion-resistant alloys, sound-dampened sliders, recyclable polyester tapes. AiryString continues that tradition, shrinking the zipper’s physical and environmental footprint at once.
This is alien to SF AI startups and patent trolls.
emptybits
"Major Upgrade" for the fast, disposable fashion crowd.
Major downgrade for maintainability and ability to repair.
This "upgraded" zipper will be impossible to replace if broken at home, by hand or with a machine, or even at a typical professional repair shop. YKK documents say a "dedicated AiryString® sewing machine" is required.[1]
[1]https://ykkdigitalshowroom.com/assets/AiryString_202507_en.p...
OptionOfT
Fabrics have gotten a lot thinner, and thus develop holes a lot more quickly.
I have t-shirts from 2010 which are faded but have 0 holes. Whereas t-shirts I bought half a year ago have holes in them.
Also, you mentioning the inability to repair stuff at home makes me sad. My mom, 72 year old, repaired my nephew's jacket the other day. Brand new zipper.
The machine in that PDF you shared makes me feel YKK is going in the direction of Apple. They supply the parts and the manufacturing device.
You do something they don't like? Sewing machine turns off.
emptybits
Yes. Also at the above link:
"All AiryString® part sales and leasing of dedicated sewing machines are conducted between YKK and the customer. YKK will also coordinate the installation and startup of sewing machines at garment manufacturing factories. For more information on leasing dedicated sewing machines, please contact your YKK representative"
Retr0id
It might be more challenging but I don't see why you couldn't also sew this by hand.
helterskelter
> When asked what zippers might look like in 50 years, Nishizaki doesn’t talk about smart fabrics or AI-assisted closures. He returns to YKK’s mantra: “Little parts. Big difference.”
AI-assisted closures. Surely this is humor?
Danieru
This is a big deal for YKK.
Until a few years ago they had a hold on the upper end of the market. The chinese competitor's quality was unreliable enough that clothing manufacturers were willing to pay a premium to ensure a failed zipper does not trash a garment. That situation has been changing, and chinese companies are offering zippers which are getting used on progressively higher end products.
By releasing a new product with substantial changes and thus patentability they can buy a few decades at the top of the market. I suspect this technology has been in development for a long time, and held back until competitors were threatening the premium traditional zipper market.
Amorymeltzer
The excellent Avery Trufelman (formerly of 99% Invisible) has been running Articles of Interest (<https://www.articlesofinterest.co> and <https://articlesofinterest.substack.com>), a surprisingly interesting podcast about clothing and and culture and so much more. The Ivy League episodes are a great example of what they're about.
Over the summer, they had an episode about the zipper—<https://articlesofinterest.substack.com/p/new-episode-zipper...> and <https://www.articlesofinterest.co/podcast/episode/2b1f2292/z...>—which is well worth a listen.
thunderbong
A close-up video
olejorgenb
Published 4 years ago, yet it show this new product unless I'm mistaken.
null
empiricus
tangent: all my pants have zipper pockets. after almost losing my phone in a taxi in dubai a long time ago, I always get pants with zippers, even though I do not always close them...
tempaccount420
Do you find it hard to buy new pants? I wish there was a search engine for clothes...
tokai
The water resistant zipper is not a 100 years old, and that was a huge upgrade.
aidenn0
I think the same is true of the self-healing zipper, but I can't find a source for when it was invented.
neom
"Please be aware that when using AiryString® on fabrics with the following characteristics, there are concerns that the zipper may come unstitched, roll into the slider, or not be strong enough. ◇ Fabrics with notably low slippage resistance ( woven fabrics: fabrics with low thread counts, knitted fabrics: fabrics with loose tension). ◇ Fabrics with low friction resistance ◇ Fabrics with large bumps ◇ Shaggy fabrics"
Seems like the target use case is Athleisure?
jsolson
That would make sense.
My first thought was "Arc'teryx will probably adopt this immediately." They (and similar brands) are already pushing as hard as they can on seamlessness or very very tight seams.
lvl155
I’d like to see a self-correcting zipper design.
masklinn
Do you mean self-healing zippers? They've existed for years.
amelius
After reading the article I have no idea what is different in the new version.
Kikawala
PDF catalog for the AiryString has a lot more details and technical information.
https://ykkdigitalshowroom.com/assets/AiryString_202507_en.p...
It looks like there is a core cord inside the zipper teeth. The specialized sewing machine stitches the cord to the fabric in between each teeth... tooth?
the__alchemist
What I can't figure out is how the new version attached to the fabric. That's at the core of this right? Metal-fabric interface.
grapesodaaaaa
I wonder how fabrics will handle the mechanical wear vs the durable tape “track” used in a traditional zipper
OptionOfT
They won't. They only work with garments < 1.3mm. Nothing here is about durability.
mrits
They found a worse way to create a worse zipper with a proprietary machine that no one owns . This is the future
iancmceachern
“The absence of the tape posed various production challenges,” Nishizaki says. “We had to develop new manufacturing equipment and a dedicated sewing machine for integration.”
dewey
> Their new AiryString zipper looks ordinary at first glance. Then you realize what’s missing: there’s no tape. That absence transforms everything. Without the woven fabric that normally flanks the teeth, the AiryString is lighter, sleeker, and far more flexible.
pwg
The fourth, and last, photo of zippers in the article shows the old and new versions side by side, making it easy to see what is different.
bookofjoe
Here you go: https://imgur.com/a/FQGdSkg
amelius
Yes, so the zipper hasn't changed, just the way it is attached to the fabric.
iancmceachern
No, from the article:
"Without them, YKK had to rethink every step of production
The teeth were redesigned, the manufacturing process rewritten, and new machinery developed to attach the closure to garments. “The absence of the tape posed various production challenges,” Nishizaki says."
bookofjoe
From the Wired article: "The teeth were redesigned..."
WesolyKubeczek
Apparently no tape, the zipper is bare, so special sewing machines are required and you plebs cannot just repair your clothes affordably (or yourself) anymore.
gilfoy
All the other zippers will still exist. Clothes without zippers will still exist. Roughly nobody does this anyway.
konart
>Roughly nobody does this anyway.
I had at least z dozen zippers replaced through my life. Some times you a very good product with poorly chosen zipper, some times it is some sort of an accident.
I find the idea of buying a new coat instead of fixing a small part of the old one weird.
Gualdrapo
> Roughly nobody does this anyway.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof and at least here in this so-called "third world" country plenty of people makes their clothing to be repaired in any way or do it themselves (even me, sometimes)
Gualdrapo
Funny enough they mention that this new zipper cuts emisions but at the same time requires another (propietary) machine to sew them into clothing... are net emmisions actually going to be diminished?
allears
Not only that, but DIYers and alteration/repair will be out of luck too.
renewiltord
You can. You’d just attach a fabric tape zipper and the clothes would stop being as flexible. So you get the best of both worlds: a fancy zipper to start with that delivers increased performance and then you remove the performance and have an old zipper placed in there.
You just get an extra semi rigid fabric track when you repair. Your clothes should still work.
oompydoompy74
Then you didn’t read the article. It’s spelled out pretty explicitly.
https://web.archive.org/web/20251019162445/https://www.wired...
https://archive.ph/FxsAT