Sewing Spacesuits: New AiryString Zipper

When I teach beginners, I try to emphasize that, while you may be scared to start sewing, nothing about it is inherently scary. When I am gone and someone is reading my eulogy, I'm pretty certain the only thing they'll be able to say I "always" said, is, "Nothing explodes, nothing spills, nothing stains" regarding sewing. It's an art form I've always been drawn to because it's not particularly time-intensive to set up or clean up. Start, stop, come back to it a year later-- it's all good.

While teaching good sewing habits, I give students the skills they need to achieve precision after some practice. No one's perfect at first, and no one's really ever perfect. If a student learning to turn a corner while stitching goes a stitch or two past the turning point and winces, or says, "I messed up," I counsel patience and forgiveness. "We aren't sewing spacesuits," is also something I always say.

This week, the YKK zipper company (THE zipper company for all intents and purposes) introduced the first major innovation in zippers in the past century. They took the tape off of it.

AiryString tape-less zipper from YKK

If you've never sewn a zipper into a piece of clothing or a bag, then this will fly over your head as uninteresting. When a zipper is already in a garment, you might not even know what part is the zipper and what part is the fabric of the coat. Zippers (for all of history) were metal or plastic teeth (the interlocking part) attached on either side with the "tape", a ribbon of fabric that is the border attaching to the garment. When I heard that YKK had invented a zip without the tape, I had a wow-this-is-sci-fi moment. I imagine it's what people thought when they heard hook-and-loop fasteners for the first time (that's the generic name for what we call Velcro.)

YKK #5 Aluminum zipper from Wawak.com. The "tape" is the blue along the sides. When you pick out a zipper for a project, the tape often shows, so you'll pick a matching or coordinating color tape to go with what you're making.

So, without that tape, what's left but a thin strand of teeth? Sounds a little macabre, and from the articles wowing over it, give no indication of how a person is supposed to attach this necklace of incisors to a pencil case.

Unfortunately, the Wired article didn't mention the one thing I'm guessing most of the readers really wanted to know. HOW DO YOU PUT IT ON??? Zippers, the regular earthly kind, can be sewn into fabric with a normal presser foot, but it's easier with a zipper foot. The sewing machine needle doesn't get close enough to the metal teeth to be in danger of breaking. You'll match the tape with the fabric, and sew those two things together. Without the tape, the only thing to sew to the fabric is... the zipper.

Luckily, the YKK youtube has someone at a trade show explaining exactly how the AiryString zipper will work.

Just kidding, it's only about the zipper, nothing about how it actually attaches to the fabric! To me, it looks like you'll maybe have to use a zig-zag stitch that EXACTLY fits in between each tooth. Or it'll require a different presser foot, or different machine entirely. It's research and development at this point, not a consumer-ready product.

Luckily for you, sewing zippers in (the old-fashion kind with tape) is not that hard. If this new-fangled zipper becomes more accessible, I have no doubt taped zippers are going anywhere anytime soon.

Innovation is good, even if the things it makes don't look usable (I like to think it all filters down to something worthwhile eventually, and pretty sure the new zippers aren't going to ruin our civilization like other harebrained innovations of the day.) This one, for home sewists, is not fully baked. You'll hear the spokesperson talking about it making the zipper lighter, or with easier movement. This will eventually be a boon to super technical wear (like spacesuits) and lead to accessibility uses for people with disabilities (cool). But right now, the zippers we have are pretty great, even if they are a century old.

Until someone invents a zipper that be more easily replaced-- I'm good with the oldies.