GEORGE DE MESTRAL
THE HOOK AND LOOP FASTENER
Mestral named his creation Velcro after the French “velours”, meaning velvet, and “crochet”, meaning hook.
The Velcro company now makes over 60 million yards of Velcro each year.
Inspired by nature
Walking in the woods one day in 1945, Swiss engineer George de Mestral noticed that Burdock seeds were sticking to his clothes. Wondering why this might be happening, he looked at the seeds under a microscope and discovered that they were covered in hundreds of tiny hooks. These hooks were latching onto loops in the thread of his jacket.
A versatile fastening
De Mestral made the short mental leap to realise that he could make an industrial fastening based on the same principle. the hook and loop fastener was the result, an idea he submitted for patent in 1951. It was granted four years later.
The hook and loop fastener is used today in a wide range of places, from clothing to car manufacture, where it’s used to hold interior roof linings and even some car panels in place.