I lived in China for a while and had the occasion to experience the constant frustration that accompanies Chinese zippers. Zipping down your fly and not knowing whether you will be able to zip up. Taking 5 minutes every morning to zip up your kid's raincoat. And my favorite, having a "Golden Harvest" backpack zipper fail while on the bus and spilling its contents on the floor. Ever since then, I always make sure the zippers on my clothes are YKK.
Why YKK? The Japanese company behind the world’s best zippers
31–40 of 61 posts
Re: Why YKK? The Japanese company behind the world’s best zippers
#32"The EU’s General Court backed the European Commission’s fines of 150 million euros ($187 million) for YKK, based in Tokyo, and 110 million euros for Coats in 2007 over cartels involving fasteners and related machinery, one of which ran for more than 21 years. The EU said at the time that the zipper market was worth about 400 million euros a year and the market for other metal fasteners was worth 200 million euros."…
So these companies led the cartels? I get that there was a judgement, but it's REALLY light on details.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/09/19/idUSL1926941520070...
> The Commission has found four separate infringements in which these companies agreed on coordinated price increases, fixed minimum prices, allocated customers, shared markets and exchanged other commercially important and confidential information
Re: Why YKK? The Japanese company behind the world’s best zippers
#33I've started buying zipper-less equipment. It's less prone to error, and feels a bit more rustic. Definitely more fun to use. Examples: I only buy jeans with buttons. My Fjallraven backpack has metal hooks instead of a zipper.
Anecdotally, switching to a button-fly rather than zipper led to a dramatic decrease in me walking about with my fly open.
Re: Why YKK? The Japanese company behind the world’s best zippers
#34This just seems like a blatant submarine article [1] - anyone who upvoted want to share what they found interesting about it? [1] http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
I began reading the article and looked down at the zipper on my hoodie. I've never looked at my zipper brand before. Lo and behold, YKK. The article pointed out something that I've taken for granted pretty much my entire life.
Re: Why YKK? The Japanese company behind the world’s best zippers
#35My cousin is a fashion designer and her company have had to deal with Chinese garment manufacturers who are paid to use YKK zippers and instead use counterfeit YKK. That was a few years ago though, now with fast fashion trends and cut-rate prices everywhere, they have had to give up on YKK zippers altogether.
Re: Why YKK? The Japanese company behind the world’s best zippers
#36I suspect many people who've ever idly looked at a zip will have noticed the letters "YKK" on them, and at least a few of those people will have made it to YKK's Wikipedia page, which is at least equally as informative as this article. I was a bit confounded by this sentence: "The precision necessary to craft a working bicycle chain or a smoothly meshing zipper was simply beyond us for all those prior millennia." Sur…
Roller bearings are old, but no one ever made a ball bearing until the bicycle era. They grew up together, and the first ball bearing equipped bicycles dominated competition about a century ago. Ball bearings were the carbon fiber of their era. I don't think ball mfgr technology of a level of roundness and surface quality suitable for ball bearings was compatible with ancient technology. The metalurgy would be highly…
I'm surprised bicycles don't try v-belts.
Re: Why YKK? The Japanese company behind the world’s best zippers
#37When I was 7 or 8 and lived in the Soviet Union, I remember my cousin telling me that his jacket was better than mine because it had YKK zippers.
Re: Why YKK? The Japanese company behind the world’s best zippers
#38This just seems like a blatant submarine article [1] - anyone who upvoted want to share what they found interesting about it? [1] http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
It's actually a pretty well-written article. And in a way, it reveals to us "the hidden order of things", or at least a nano-scale slice of it.
Re: Why YKK? The Japanese company behind the world’s best zippers
#39I really wish I understood all the fuss about YKK zippers. I first heard the word on the street about YKK being amazing many years ago, perhaps 20 years ago, in a similar article.
Then I see plenty of support for this, but my own personal experiences are that YKK are average to middling at best.
YKK may have once been the best, but this is certainly no longer true.
All I can assume is that this is the most successful astroturfing marketing I've ever witnessed.
Re: Why YKK? The Japanese company behind the world’s best zippers
#40I lived in China for a while and had the occasion to experience the constant frustration that accompanies Chinese zippers. Zipping down your fly and not knowing whether you will be able to zip up. Taking 5 minutes every morning to zip up your kid's raincoat. And my favorite, having a "Golden Harvest" backpack zipper fail while on the bus and spilling its contents on the floor. Ever since then, I always make sure the…
Uniqlo uses YKK zippers and I can honestly say that they are the best zippers ever.