Industry Technologies
YKK's first major upgrade to the zipper in about 100 years is the AiryString zipper.
This new design is notable because it strips away the traditional fabric tape that has held zippers together for over a century. The result is a zipper that is reported to be lighter, sleeker, far more flexible, and easier to integrate into modern materials.
The zipper, as we know it, hasn’t had a real overhaul since the 1910s. Its long reign owes much to reliability—it’s sturdy, inexpensive, and easy to sew. For most of the 20th century, that was enough. But materials have evolved. Designers now work with featherlight nylons, stretch fabrics, and technical blends that behave more like skin than cloth. The old zipper, with its woven borders and stiff seams, has started to feel out of sync with what surrounds it.
“We wanted to address the challenges involved in zipper sewing,” says Makoto Nishizaki, vice president of YKK’s Application Development Division. The idea grew out of a collaboration with JUKI Corporation, a leader in industrial sewing machines. Together, the two companies reconsidered how a zipper could be made and how it could merge more seamlessly with fabric. The partnership began in 2017 and made its public debut at the JIAM 2022 Osaka trade show—a detail that hints at how long YKK plays the long game.
“There has been a growing demand from the market for lighter and more flexible garments,” Nishizaki says. “And similar expectations have extended to zippers.” However, removing the tape introduced a host of engineering problems. Those strips of fabric give a zipper its structure and provide the surface that tailors sew through. Without them, YKK had to rethink every step of production.
The teeth were redesigned, the manufacturing process rewritten, and new machinery developed to attach the closure to garments. “The absence of the tape posed various production challenges,” Nishizaki says. “We had to develop new manufacturing equipment and a dedicated sewing machine for integration.” The result: a lighter, more flexible system that reduces material use and environmental impact compared with a standard Vislon zipper.
The AiryString is often applied in sportswear and fashion where lightweight, flexibility, and a streamlined look are highly valued.
Little Parts, Big ChangeOn the factory floor, the benefits add up, too. Traditional zippers consume extra fabric and dye and require multiple sewing passes. By removing the tape, YKK says it trims both material and labor. “It contributes to reducing work in customers’ sewing processes,” Nishizaki says. “It also reduces fiber use and water consumption in the dyeing process, lowering CO₂ emissions.”
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YKK's new zipper design completely removes the fabric strip on either side of the teeth, making the AiryString lighter, sleeker, and far more flexible. Photograph: Courtesy of AiryString
The math adds up fast. YKK offers a 100 percent recycled-material version of AiryString and claims measurable cuts to greenhouse gas emissions and water usage. The impact is magnified by scale: The company operates in 71 countries and regions, and its trademark is registered in 177. When you make billions of zippers a year, these small efficiencies ripple globally.
While YKK has introduced many innovations over its history (like the YZip for jeans and the Conceal zipper, where the teeth are hidden), the AiryString is being widely characterized as the first fundamental redesign of the core zipper mechanism since its modern inception.
Its defining characteristic is that it is a tapeless zipper, meaning it completely eliminates the traditional fabric tape that runs along the sides of the zipper teeth.
Here are the key features and benefits of the AiryString zipper:
Tapeless Design: The zipper elements (teeth) are designed to be sewn directly onto the fabric of the product.
Weight Reduction: Eliminating the fabric tape contributes to a lighter weight for the final product.
Increased Flexibility and Softness: The design allows the zipper to easily follow the movement of the fabric, offering a softer feel and greater flexibility.
Design Possibilities: It creates a more seamless, streamlined look, opening up new design potential for apparel and other products.
Sustainability: YKK offers an eco-friendly version where the chain is made of 100% recycled material, and the production process reduces greenhouse gas emissions and water consumption compared to standard zippers.
Specialized Manufacturing: Due to the tapeless design, the AiryString zipper requires a specialized sewing machine (developed in collaboration with JUKI Corporation) to attach the elements directly to the fabric.
Release: The AiryString zipper was announced and began being adopted by customers (such as the sportswear brand Goldwin) starting around 2019.
Sources: wired.com and aitopics.org