0:00 In 1893, a man named Whitcomb Judson patented a device called the "Clasp Locker." It took another twenty-two years before that invention—what we call a zipper—actually worked without constantly failing.0:13 Failing is putting it mildly.0:15 Judson's device was a catastrophe.0:18 It was this clumsy hook-and-eye system meant for shoes, and it would pop open or jam constantly.0:24 The company he founded, the Universal Fastener Company, was bleeding money.0:29 They hired a Swedish-American electrical engineer, Gideon Sundback, to try and fix it.0:35 And that's where everything changes.0:38 So Sundback is the real hero of the zipper.0:41 Not the first guy.0:42 He IS the hero!0:43 Because he realized the hook-and-eye idea was a dead end.0:47 He threw it out.0:48 After years of work, in 1913 he created the "Hookless No.0:52 2." Instead of hooks, it had these tiny, identical, interlocking teeth.0:57 Each tooth has a little dimple on the bottom and a little scoop on the top.1:02 The slider—that Y-shaped channel—forces the scoops of one side into the dimples of the other at a perfect angle.1:10 It’s a mechanical miracle of precision.1:12 Okay, so now it works.1:14 It’s reliable.1:15 So then it’s on every pair of pants in America, right?1:19 No!1:19 Absolutely not.1:20 For years, nobody wanted it.1:22 This is the part that drives me crazy.1:24 The best analogy is the early automobile.1:27 The first cars were seen as loud, smelly, unreliable toys for the rich.1:32 People trusted the horse.1:34 In the same way, tailors and the public trusted buttons.1:38 The zipper felt… vulgar.1:39 Mechanical.1:40 It was relegated to rubber boots and tobacco pouches.1:44 So it was a solution to a problem nobody thought they had.1:48 Exactly.1:48 It wasn't seen as an improvement, it was seen as a risk.1:52 The thing that broke the dam was World War One.1:55 The U.S.1:56 Navy started using zippers on flying suits and money belts because they were fast and secure.2:02 Suddenly, you have hundreds of thousands of soldiers using this thing every single day.2:08 And that mass adoption is what made it normal.2:11 It proved it worked.2:13 It proved it worked, and it made it cool.2:15 The soldiers came home, and the idea of a zipper wasn't strange anymore.2:20 By the 1930s, Esquire magazine was promoting trousers with zippers as a new idea for menswear.2:27 The revolution took forty years, and it had to go through a world war to get there.2:33 It’s a reminder that even the most brilliant engineering is useless until culture decides it’s ready.
