hurrengoa
the zip empire koldo almandoz   How many secrets are hidden behind a zip? I’m sure the same thought has occurred to you all, hasn’t it? Surely it has? (If your mind has strayed towards body bags and the like... bad head trouble there!). Take a look at the clothes you’re wearing right now – if we’ve caught you buck-naked, look in your wardrobe, or your sports bag, or wherever... you’re sure to find a zip with the letters YKK emblazoned across it. YKK is the zip that hides our nakedness, desire, hate (and sometimes death)...

Tadao Yoshida founded the Yoshida Kogyo Kabushikikaisha zip company on the 1st of January, 1934. Actually, the zip was invented by an engineer in Chicago in the XIX century. Withcomb L. Judson invented a closing-system that was surer to stay closed than buttons and clips. He called the invention the C-Curity, but people were soon to rebaptise it the zipper. At the start of the XX Century, only vanguard designers and tailors were using the zip.

Today, the YKK company which employs 36,000 workers has almost no competition around the world. In this day and age of Brand-name rule, YKK has managed to unite rich and poor, black rappers and Ku Klux Klan leaders as well as drug-loving punks and Mormon preachers. Even though we don’t realise it, we wear those three little letters like a tattoo. Every day. Throughout all our lives...

The Balde has no problem with Yoshida’s successors, but that doesn’t mean we want to unnecessarily fatten their coffers. That’s why we’re gonna show you a little trick we know to fix broken zips.