YKK’s Replaceable Zipper Teeth Put Repair Into the Supply Chain

YKK, the Tokyo company whose three letters are stamped on zippers worldwide, exhibits at the Textile Exchange Conference in Vancouver from 12 to 16 October, seven months after its zipper repair parts won an iF Design Award. The Revived Replacement Elements let a repair centre fit new teeth to a damaged VISLON zipper with a dedicated tool, while the zipper stays sewn into the garment.

The parts. YKK launched its Revived series in September 2024 with four components: die-cast replacement elements for VISLON zippers, a replacement slider for coil zippers that works without special tools, a VISLON zipper with a top stop that lets the slider come off for repair, and a replacement puller for racquet coil zippers.

The award. In March 2026 the replacement elements won an iF Design Award, with particularly high scores for sustainability and idea, according to YKK. This year’s competition drew more than 10,000 entries from 68 countries.

The conference. Textile Exchange, the non-profit that tracks global fibre production, holds its annual conference at the Vancouver Convention Centre, and YKK Corporation is listed among the exhibitors. At last year’s conference in Lisbon, YKK showed its repair components together with NATULON, its line of zippers made with recycled material.

The material. In July  2026 YKK presented a concept zipper tape made partly from used clothing, produced with Epson’s Dry Fiber Technology and worn in Yuima Nakazato’s couture collection INFERNO in Paris.

Repair in fashion has so far been organised mostly by brands, through programmes that collect worn garments and send them to workshops. YKK’s parts bring the supplier into that work: a repair centre replaces only the damaged teeth or the slider, which shortens the repair, according to the company. The repair economy in fashion is growing around exactly these small decisions.

Textile Exchange’s latest figures put global fibre production at 139 million tonnes. Each repair that keeps a jacket in use for another season takes a small share of that volume out of the next production cycle, and with the Revived parts that repair starts at the zipper.