• iconNews
  • videos
  • entertainment
  • Home
  • News
    • UK News
    • US News
    • Australia
    • Ireland
    • World News
    • Weird News
    • Viral News
    • Sport
    • Technology
    • Science
    • True Crime
    • Travel
  • Entertainment
    • Celebrity
    • TV & Film
    • Netflix
    • Music
    • Gaming
    • TikTok
  • LAD Originals
    • FFS PRODUCTIONS
    • Say Maaate to a Mate
    • Daily Ladness
    • UOKM8?
    • FreeToBe
    • Citizen Reef
  • Advertise
  • Terms
  • Privacy & Cookies
  • LADbible Group
  • UNILAD
  • SPORTbible
  • GAMINGbible
  • Tyla
  • UNILAD Tech
  • FOODbible
  • License Our Content
  • About Us & Contact
  • Jobs
  • Latest
  • Topics A-Z
  • Authors
Facebook
Instagram
X
Threads
Snapchat
TikTok
YouTube

LAD Entertainment

YouTube

LAD Stories

Submit Your Content
Most zips you own probably have all the same writing on them for one reason

Home> Community

Published 15:51 5 Jun 2025 GMT+1

Most zips you own probably have all the same writing on them for one reason

You probably don't even realise anymore

Jess Battison

Jess Battison

It’s pretty likely that the majority of the zips sitting in your wardrobe all have the exact same writing on.

No, pack it in, I’m not suggesting you’ve got a big box of zips sat amongst your clothes. But I’m talking about the actual zips on all those bits of clothing.

For a very specific reason, most of those zippers will have three little letters on.

Sure, in some cases maybe they’ve got the specific designer branding on or maybe even a fashionable little pattern. However, a huge number of zippers all over the world have the same bit of writing on them. So yeah, you’re really not so unique, hate to break it to you.

Advert

It’s not some kind of weird policy either though, but it’s because there’s quite the global domination of zippers.

Bet you're rifling through all your jackets now. (Getty Stock)
Bet you're rifling through all your jackets now. (Getty Stock)

The bit of writing found all over these zips is the simple ‘YKK’. Yeah, bet that’s ringing a bell now isn’t it?

Most of us probably don’t even realise, but it’s all because there’s one big company that is said to produce about half the world’s supply.

Founded in Japan all the way back in 1934 by Tadao Yoshida (who designed his own zip machines), YKK was originally called Yoshida Kogyo Kabushikikaisha.

The name was changed to the three letters in 1994 with the privately held group now made up of 106 companies across 70 countries.

READ MORE:

ADULTS SO OBSESSED WITH LABUBUS THEY'VE BEEN BRAWLING

FLIGHT ATTENDANT WARNS AGAINST PIECE OF CLOTHING

YKK doesn’t just make the actual zip either, but the dyed cloth and the brass used, said to produce over 1.8 million miles worth every year. Plus, it even produces the machines that make the products themselves.

So, all the zippers made are stamped with the YKK as a form of the company’s branding.

It’s reported that one of the factory sites in Macon, Georgia, produces more than five million a day, in 1,500 styles in over 400 standard colours.

Inside a YKK factory in 1978. (Sunny Lee/South China Morning Post via Getty Images)
Inside a YKK factory in 1978. (Sunny Lee/South China Morning Post via Getty Images)

Despite this domination of zips across the globe, YKK didn’t actually invent them. Someone developed a bit of a hook-and-loop fastener back in the 1890s which looked like a zip without the slider.

Then in the early 1900s, Swedish-American engineer Gideon Sundback is pretty much given credit for inventing the zip as we know it.

On Reddit, users agree that the majority of zips have YKK on them pretty much because they’re the best.

“YKK is ubiquitous but for a reason. They make incredible zippers,” one pro zipper wrote.

As another echoed: “If you see it, you know you got a good zipper. If not, prepare for imminent zipper malfunctions.”

Featured Image Credit: Getty Stock

Topics: Fashion

Jess Battison
Jess Battison

Jess is a Senior Journalist with a love of all things pop culture. Her main interests include asking everyone in the office what they're having for tea, waiting for a new series of The Traitors and losing her voice at a Beyoncé concert. She graduated with a first in Journalism from City, University of London in 2021.

X

@jessbattison_

Advert

Advert

Advert

Choose your content:

22 hours ago
2 days ago
  • itsvaleriaandcamila/Instagram
    22 hours ago

    Truth behind viral conjoined twins who gained more than 280,000 Instagram followers

    An expert has weighed in on the influencers

    Community
  • Alina Rudya/Bell Collective
    2 days ago

    Harvard psychiatrist says there's one simple question that can instantly improve your relationships

    Dr Ashwini Nadkarni claimed asking this question can 'bring people together in a way that dating for five years might not'

    Community
  • (Bettmann/Getty Images)
    2 days ago

    62-year-old video could now change everything we know about JFK’s assassination

    US President Kennedy was assassinated in Texas on 22 November, 1963

    Community
  • YouTube
    2 days ago

    Married man left wife to start relationship with his own mother

    They are now planning to get married and have children

    Community
  • These Noughties movies are all worth a lot of money if you have them on DVD or Blu-Ray
  • Diesel, Uniqlo and M&S all have same advice for washing jeans after Levi's CEO issued warning
  • You could be sitting on a fortune if you still own any of these iconic 90s video games
  • Flight attendant shares real reason they all wear red lipstick