After reading a couple of the comments on my last post about splitting invisible zippers, it seems I’ve been had.
This is a small selection of zippers in my stash, all of them purchased from either my local Fabricland or World Sew Centre from the Fashion District downtown. If you zoom in, you can see that all the zipper pulls have YKK on them. So you’d think you’d be getting a YKK zipper, right? Wrong.
The only genuine YKK zipper is the metal zipper on the far right. Since Jen (NY) left her comment, and Anne from Mercury Handmade’s similar comment on my previous post, I’ve been scouring the internet looking at closeup’s of YKK zippers on websites. Guess what I learned? I’ve been buying crap imitation invisible nylon zippers. With a “YKK” imprint on the sliders.
So, I’m going to scrounge around the internet and order some from somewhere, and then, on August 10th, when the Toronto Sewcialists meet up, I’ll pick everyone’s brain and scour the fashion district in the hopes of finding a local genuine YKK vendor.
Mezzo Couture 
If you find a supplier in Canada, let me know!! I’m stuck using those damnable plastic jobbies as well 😛
Well the rotten cheap fakers I didn’t know that either. I get my YKKs from one of the fabric stores in Wellington (NZ) and haven’t had a problem yet but the local (cheaper) habadash place has told me they do them too. Hmmm. Thanks for posting this.
Very interesting topic. I basically use YKK zipper as well when I make some clothes. Thank you for sharing.:)xo
Very interesting. I love trivia like this. Thanks for sharing. I’m also really liking all the comments on this post — very helpful!
That’s interesting! I buy Birch’s zips in Australia and have never had any trouble with them 🙂
Wow! For the last long while I’ve been snubbing what I thought were YKK zippers (but now I am thinking are fakes from that P-named store) in lieu of Excella’s which I didn’t realize actually are YKK zippers. At least the moral of the story for me is that I can trust my judgement.
Wow. I had no idea that I wasn’t the only one who noticed this. I guess I lead a pretty isolated sewing life. (NYers, I originally saw a large quantity of fakes at a popular garment district trim shop whose name begins with “P.”) I was fairly familiar with the real thing at the time & I realized they were probably fakes because 1) they did not zip as smoothly as expected, 2) they were not carded as they were at other shops, but that could easily be copied too, 3) something was just not quite right or hefty enough feeling in the hand. BTW, I recently bought my first YKK Excella zipper and it is a thing of beauty…
Zipperstop on etsy sell the real deal.. I don’t buy zippers in Aus anymore due to lots of fakes and just plain crap quality XP
Yup, I concur with this (and substitute NZ for Aus). Zipperstop also have their own website – at least I think they are the same company!
I bought mine from http://www.zipperstop.com/ good price, genuine stuff!
What a bummer, it must be, to find out you bought imitiation stuff 😦
Yeah, well I think I’ll make use of what I can and thrift or trash the fake invisible ones, since those are the zips I have the most trouble with.
Hi, I think this website: http://www.ykkfastening.com/products/zipper/ lists the types of genuine YKK zippers 🙂 (if it’s of any help to you).
Plus this page http://www.ykkfastening.com/brand/index.html details about their ‘Anti-Counterfeiting Measures’ too.
Thanks, Claire! This is helpful.