그 조그마한
지퍼가 생활의 일부로 되기까지는 참 먼길을 걸어왔다. 지퍼는 정말 우리 생활에서 "늘 함께"하는
기계적 놀라움바로 그것이다.돌이켜보면 지퍼는 "지퍼"를 모든 이의 옷의
일부로 받아들일 정도로 인식하기 까지 수많은 발명가만이 기여하였다기 보다는 사실은
잡지나 패숀산업계가 큰 역활을 하였다. 즉, 지퍼가 세상에 태어난지 거의 80년이 지나서야 널리
사용된 것이다.The Zipper
그 조그마한
지퍼가 생활의 일부로 되기까지는 참 먼길을 걸어왔다. 지퍼는 정말 우리 생활에서 "늘 함께"하는
기계적 놀라움바로 그것이다.돌이켜보면 지퍼는 "지퍼"를 모든 이의 옷의
일부로 받아들일 정도로 인식하기 까지 수많은 발명가만이 기여하였다기 보다는 사실은
잡지나 패숀산업계가 큰 역활을 하였다. 즉, 지퍼가 세상에 태어난지 거의 80년이 지나서야 널리
사용된 것이다.
재봉틀을 발명하였던 엘리어스 하우이는 자동적이면서 연속적인 옷닫기라는 이름으로 1851년에 특허를 받았다. 생각건대 엘리어스가 "옷닫기"를 마케팅할려고 노력하지아니한 이유는 재봉틀의 성공 때문에 "지퍼의 아버지"가 될 기회를 잊어 버린 것같다. 45년후에 화이트콤 져슨 1851년에 받은 특허와 비슷한 "Clasp Locker"라는 것을 시장에 내놓았다. 처음에 시장에 내놓은 덕에 그는 "지퍼의발명가"로 인정받는 영광을 얻었으며, 그당시에만해도 "지퍼"라는 말은 사용되지않았다.
It was a long way up for the humble zipper, the mechanical wonder that has kept so much in our lives "together." On its way up the zipper has passed through the hands of several dedicated inventors, none who convinced the general public to accept the "Zipper" as part of everyday costume. The magazine and fashion industry made the novel zipper the popular item it is today, but it happened nearly eighty years after the zipper's first appearance.
Elias Howe, who invented the sewing machine received a patent in 1851 for an "Automatic, Continuous Clothing Closure." Perhaps it was the success of sewing machine which caused Elias to not pursue marketing his "Clothing Closure." As a result Howe missed his chance to become the recognized "Father of the Zip."
Forty-four years later, Mr. Whitcomb Judson (who also invented
the "Pneumatic Street Railway")
marketed a "Clasp Locker" a device similar to the 1851 patent. Being
first to market gave Whitcomb the honor of commonly being credited as the "Inventor
of the Zipper", though what he patented
in 1893 wasn't even called a zipper
at the time. The Chicago inventor's "Clasp Locker" was a complicated
hook-and-eye shoe fastener, together with businessman Colonel Lewis Walker,
Whitcomb launched the Universal Fastener Company to manufacture the new device.
화이트콤의 "클래습 록커"사진
Swedish immigrant and electrical engineer Gideon Sundback
was hired to work for Universal Fastener Company, good design skills and a marriage
to the plant manager's daughter Elvira Aronson led Sundback to the position
of head designer at Universal. He was responsible for improving the far from
perfect "Judson C-curity Fastener." Unfortunately Sundback's wife
died in 1911, and the grieving husband busied himself at the design table, by
December of 1913 he came up with a design that became the zipper as it is known
today.
Sundback increased the number of fastening elements from
four per inch to ten or eleven, two facing rows of teeth that pulled into a
single piece by the slider, and increased the opening for the teeth guided by
the slider. The patent for the "Separable Fastener" was issued in
1917. Sundback also created the manufacturing machine for the new zipper, the
"S-L" or scrapless machine took special Y-shaped wire and cut scoops
from it, then punched the scoop dimple and nib, and clamped
each scoop on a cloth tape to produce
a continuous zipper chain. Within the first year of operation Sundback's zipper-making
machinery was producing a few hundred feet of fastener per day.
The original 1917
patent for the "Separable Fastener"
The popular "Zipper" name came from the B. F.
Goodrich Company, when they decided to use Gideon's fastener on a new type of
rubber boots or galoshes and renamed the device "Zipper," the name
which lasted. Boots and tobacco pouches with a zippered closure were the two
chief uses of the zipper during its early years. It took twenty more years to
convince the fashion industry to seriously promote the novel closure on garments.
In the 1930's a sales campaign began for children's clothing
featuring zippers, praising zippers for promoting self-reliance in young children
by making it possible for them to dress in "self-help clothing." The
zipper beat the button in the 1937 "Battle of the Fly" when french
fashion designers raved over zippers in men's trousers. Esquire
magazine declared the zipper the "Newest Tailoring Idea for Men" and
among the zippered fly's many virtues was that it would exclude "The Possibility
ofUnintentional
and Embarrassing Disarray." Obviously the new zippered trouser owners had
not yet discovered the experience of forgetting to zip up.
The next big boost for the zipper came when zippers were
designed so both ends could open, as on jackets. Today
the zipper is everywhere, in clothing, luggage and leather goods and countless
other objects. Thousands of "Zipper" miles are produced daily to meet
the needs of consumers, thanks to the early efforts of the many "Zipper"
inventors.
Whitcomb Judson
Gideon Sundback