Jean Zippers

I was talking with my mom the other day about a particular customer that came in once to the BYU sewing room. He was on the BYU ballroom dance team and he, and his mother, had brought in his tux to get mended. It needed a few buttons and a new zipper. Nothing special. But for some reason he, and his mom, wanted us to put a jean zipper into the tux pants. Both of them said (paraphrasing) "grandma said that jean zippers are stronger than the normal pants zipper and thus you should use a jean zipper if you don't want the zipper to break." He continued to tell me that a jean zipper would work better because he moves a lot (since it was a dance outfit), and that's why the zipper broke.* I was a bit irked, but we did as they wanted and put the jean zipper into the pants.

There is a bit of truth to jean zippers being stronger. They were made to handle heavier fabrics, like jean or corduroy, but that does not mean they will last longer in normal slacks. It just adds too much bulk and will wear out the fabric faster. An OCD seamstress would compare the jean zipper in slacks to putting a jean zipper into a lovely light weight (chiffon overlay kinda skirt) skirt instead of an invisible zipper or other appropriate zipper. The jean zipper would first of all look horrible, add too much bulk, and would ruin the dress before it broke the zipper.

The moral of this story; jean zippers are "stronger" (a better word would be heavy duty) because they are used with thicker, stronger (again, heavy duty) fabrics where a normal zipper would break faster and easier.

*The dance tux was also old. Which was one reason why the zipper had broken. That and the fact that he's a college age boy who doesn't take much thought into how to gently take care of his tux. It was not because he moved a lot from dancing.