The U.S. Army has a problem with Velcro. It’s too noisy. And its little loops get clogged with dust from the Afghan and Iraqi deserts. The so-called “hook-and-loop” fastener was added to standard ...

Buttons are forever a classic necessity. Zippers are having a memorable moment under the spotlight. Hooks, toggles, tied-off closures—all of these fasteners have had on-again-off-again relationships ...

Born in the tiny town of Saint-Saphorin-sur-Morges in 1907, George de Mestral filed his first patent at the age of 12, for a toy airplane. “He was driven to invent,” says Fraser Cameron, president and ...