So, to the big news. After more than a century of hardly anything changing in zip design, the Japanese company YKK, which makes half the world’s zips, has found a way of improving things. They’re calling it the AiryString zipper. You’d think after all this time they’d come up with a better name than that. Anyway, what they’ve done is strip away the fabric tape that’s held zippers together for 100 years. Huge if true. Especially huge if I had a clue what it meant, or how it helped, or anything. I sent the details to a fabric expert friend of mine, who replied, “I think it’s genius and long overdue.” Marvellous. What a time to be alive.