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Your fly is YKK: how one zipper company conquered the world

The biggest company you've never heard of: YKK makes most of the world's zippers. Clothing-makers swear by them. We explain how YKK has been bringing pants together for decades around the globe.

The company makes enough zippers every year to circle the globe 80 times

Hundreds of zippers hang on the walls of Dressew Supply store in Vancouver. (Maggie MacPherson/CBC)

It's the biggest company you've never heard of.

YKK makes most of the world's zippers, and clothing-makers swear by them. In Japan, the company is such an institution, it even has its own anime cartoon. 

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Producer Judy Aldous joins host Paul Haavardsrud with the story of how YKK conquered the zipper world by making the hardest working part of your pants.


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