As we all know velcro is used in our everyday life. It has durability and flexibility which has become a household name for organizing and fastening purpose. There is an amazing story behind this invention. So, let’s dive into it.
In 1941, George de Mestral along with his dog Milka went hunting in the Jura mountains in Switzerland. He noticed that the burrs were stuck on his pants and in his dog’s fur and wondered how they attached themselves. While many might have brushed them off in irritation, De Mestral, an amateur inventor and a curious man by nature, examined the burs under a microscope.
He saw there were thousands of tiny hooks that efficiently bound themselves to nearly any fabric (or dog hair) that passed by. He realized that if he could create a new synthetic fibre to fasten things a middle ground between buttons, zippers, and simply sewing stuff together. His idea was to use the hooks which he had seen in the bur and join them with the simple loops of fabric. So, that the tiny hooks would cling in the loop.
De Mestral’s first challenge was finding a fabric he could use to create a strong bonding system. Enlisting the help of a weaver in Lyon, France (an important textile center), de Mestral first tried using cotton. A prototype was produced by a weaver with one strip of cotton containing thousands of hooks and the other strip made up of thousands of loops. De Mestral observed that the cotton was too soft—it could not stand up to repeated openings and closures. Also, the tiny hooks were more difficult — they needed to be both flexible enough to separate from the loops when pressure was applied, yet firm enough to keep things together otherwise.
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De Mestral continued his research for several years looking for the best material for his product, as well as the optimal size of loops and hooks. After repeated testing, he eventually learned that synthetics worked best, and settled on heat-treated nylon, a strong and durable substance. There was a problem. De Mestral could only make the hooks by hand — mass manufacturing remained beyond his grasp. Running out of money, he stayed in a tiny cabin in the village of Commugny in the Swiss Alps, trying to devise a solution.
Using the modified version of barber’s clippers which has the ability to keep the angle of the cut precise, De Mestral could finally build out a loom that would allow him to mass-produce his hook-and-loop fasteners. He applied for and received a patent invention in 1955 and took out a $150,000 loan to work on his project.
De Mestral christened his new product “Velcro,” from the French words velours (velvet) and crochet (hook). (The name Velcro refers only to the trademarked brand created by de Mestral). He also created a company under the same name for manufacturing.
Initially, Velcro was not an instant hit when it came to market in the early ‘60s. Clothing manufacturers shied away from it, and it seemed like de Mestral’s invention, like so many others, would simply be relegated to the status of something interesting, but ultimately useless. Later, it received an instant boost in popularity when NASA began using the product to keep objects from floating around under zero-gravity conditions. It appeared in clothing during the mid-‘60s including high fashion — French fashion legend Pierre Cardin became obsessed with the stuff.
Nature is a good teacher and the process which De Mestral used to develop Velcro was biomimicry. Over the years, Velcro has evolved from an original item into near necessity in the developed world. This invention made De Mestral very wealthy but his patent got expired in 1978. He sold the rights to his creation to the Velcro company.
As a final note, if you were to invent a product that works like Velcro, you better not mention something even as ‘Velcro-like’ on your labels. The copyright for the name Velcro is held by the VELCRO brand, and any such unauthorised usage could land you in a legal suit. So it’s a good idea to use any leftover creativity to create a nice marketing campaign.
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