I just watched a very interesting documentary about Dr. Martin Winterhalter, founder of the riri zipper company thanks to the improvements he made to existing earlier zippers - which at one time made him one of the richest men in Switzerland.
The documentary can be seen here on 3sat - unfortunately only in German! https://www.3sat.de/gesellschaft/politik-und-gesellschaft/winterhalter-102.html He was quite the colorful character it seems, and his life veered between genius and madness...
The riri company website has some more zipper history (scroll down a bit for that): https://ririmayer.ch/en/
And here is some more information on Winterhalter and riri in English: https://denkmalpflege-schweiz.ch/2016/03/17/der-ungekroente-erfinder-des-reissverschlusses/
My sewing stash is full of riri zippers, this is still the brand my local department store sells. But I never knew just what kind of wild stories were behind this!
The documentary can be seen here on 3sat - unfortunately only in German! https://www.3sat.de/gesellschaft/politik-und-gesellschaft/winterhalter-102.html He was quite the colorful character it seems, and his life veered between genius and madness...
The riri company website has some more zipper history (scroll down a bit for that): https://ririmayer.ch/en/
And here is some more information on Winterhalter and riri in English: https://denkmalpflege-schweiz.ch/2016/03/17/der-ungekroente-erfinder-des-reissverschlusses/
My sewing stash is full of riri zippers, this is still the brand my local department store sells. But I never knew just what kind of wild stories were behind this!
