<story><title>Why YKK? The Japanese company behind the world’s best zippers</title><url>http://www.slate.com/articles/business/branded/2012/04/ykk_zippers_why_so_many_designers_use_them_.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>ndespres</author><text>&amp;quot;YKK isn’t the kind of brand that markets to consumers. (Or seeks any kind of publicity: They declined to speak to me for this story.) You don’t buy your jeans and jackets by looking for their letters on that pull. Likewise, you almost certainly wouldn’t nix a garment purchase because the zipper isn’t YKK.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;I guess I&amp;#x27;m an exception here. If I want to wear a garment more than a few times I always check to make sure the zippers are YKK. If they skimped on the zippers, who knows what else they skimped on.</text></comment>
<story><title>Why YKK? The Japanese company behind the world’s best zippers</title><url>http://www.slate.com/articles/business/branded/2012/04/ykk_zippers_why_so_many_designers_use_them_.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>tudorw</author><text>&amp;quot;The EU’s General Court backed the European Commission’s fines of 150 million euros ($187 million) for YKK, based in Tokyo, and 110 million euros for Coats in 2007 over cartels involving fasteners and related machinery, one of which ran for more than 21 years. The EU said at the time that the zipper market was worth about 400 million euros a year and the market for other metal fasteners was worth 200 million euros.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-27/coats-and-ykk-lose-eu-court-challenges-over-antitrust-fines.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.bloomberg.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;2012-06-27&amp;#x2F;coats-and-ykk-lose-...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>