The Invention of Velcro® - A Little History








			A Little History
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	Born near Lausanne in Switzerland in 1907, George De Mestral graduated in electrical engineering and was a keen, amateur inventor. He also had a great love of the outdoors which saw him often out walking with his dog. Returning home from a walk one day, he found his clothing covered with burrs, the seed sacs that one often sees sticking to animals' fur. Examining one of the burrs under a microscope, he noticed the small hooks on it that had made it possible for the burrs to stick to his clothes. He decided to try and create a two-sided fastener on the same basis with hooks on one side and loops on the other. He started his own company to manufacture the fasteners and in time became famous worldwide for his invention of "Velcro®".
	The name itself, now a Registered Trademark, came from combining two parts of two entirely different words: "vel" from velvet and "cro" from crochet which is French for hook. Although George de Mestral's original idea was developed for use on clothing, this special type of fastening has found its way into many different applications including:
	office equipment automotive industry medical applications leisure equipment sportswear fasteners for footwear aircraft nuclear engineering NASA's space programme More applications Information on George De Mestral and his invention is available throughout the Internet including web pages such as:
	More about the Invention of Velcro "History of Velcro"