Zipping along nicely
Thursday, June 20th, 2024
Almost two years ago, at the start of my outdoor swimming adventures, I bought this stupidly expensive back-zip swimsuit from Sweaty Betty. I wore it for just over a year before the zipper started splitting open with the slightest tug of the fabric. The suit was past its warranty date, so I put it aside to figure out what to do about it. It wound up sitting in a heap for months.
Several weeks ago I noticed that a woman in one of my swim classes was wearing the same suit. I told her that I had one as well but the zipper had broken, and she said that this was a known issue. The zipper on her previous suit had started splitting open and Sweaty Betty replaced it; another woman in the class said the same thing had happened to her swimsuit. They both advised that even though the warranty period was over, I should take it into a shop anyway and explain the situation—because a suit that expensive shouldn’t just fall apart after a few swims.
Me being me, I thanked them for the advice and did not take it into a shop and try to blag a replacement. Instead, I wondered whether I could replace the whole zipper myself. I soon realized this was beyond my sewing skills, so I searched online for a professional to do the job. I finally decided to bring it to a general tailor in Brighton, and for the past week I’ve been planning to do just that. Meanwhile, the suit has continued to sit in a heap.
But then I wondered if the whole zipper really needed to be fixed or just the slider part—because the “zippy” part itself was in fine condition. Cue hours of searching online for “splitting zipper” and “broken zipper slider.” A very helpful seamstress on YouTube told me that the slider maybe needed to be squeezed tighter so the zipper teeth would connect better. Feeling quite pleased that a simple solution was in reach, I grabbed some needle-nose pliers as suggested—and then what felt like an eternity trying to tighten the slider, then realizing I had tightened it too much so it was impossible to zip up and down, then trying unsuccessfully to un-tighten it, and finally throwing the now truly unzippable swimsuit across the room in disgust.
I’d done such a job on the slider that it now needed to be replaced altogether. Luckily, the internet is also full of videos explaining how to do this, and they make it look sooooo easy. The main problem is that you have to know what kind and size of zipper you have—and friends, there are SO MANY kinds and sizes of zipper. I dedicated an entire morning to zipper research, and after determining what kind of zipper slider I needed (size 5 for a molded plastic zipper), I sprung for the ridiculously named ZlideOn, which apparently just kind of snaps on after you cut off the old slider so you don’t need to remove the zipper stops at the end of the zipper, which are a whole other thing. Zippers are hard!
The ZlideOn arrived today and I got myself all set up with the swimsuit and the replacement slider and a pair of diagonal pliers/snips/nippers/cutters/whatever they’re called to cut off the slider. I thought I was going to have to buy the pliers as well, but I was delighted to find that we already had a pair kicking around the house—Jeremy uses them to snip the ends off of new mandolin/bouzouki strings, which should have given me an indication of the strength of these particular pliers (or lack thereof).
The number 5 zipper slider on the swimsuit is pretty heavy duty, as it turns out. I tried to carefully position the sharp tips of the cutters around the central part of the slider while avoiding the plastic zipper teeth and the bathing suit itself. Once I got them in place, I squeezed the pliers. And I squeezed and squeezed. Oh, how I squeezed! And oh, how absolutely nothing happened. The metal slider was way too thick for the cutters to do anything but chip away at the paint and gouge out sharp little metallic slivers. I kept trying to get the slider in different position so I could get a better grip on it with the pliers, but it was clear that this wasn’t going to work, and I was getting increasingly hot and infuriated by the entire situation.
And then I noticed that as I moved the slider up and down to come at it from a different angle—the zipper was actually zipping up smoothly and properly? And not coming apart? Completely flummoxed, I dropped the pliers, zipped up the suit, and tugged the fabric on either side of the zipper, and it held firm. I unzipped it and zipped it and tugged again, and again it held. After doing this multiple times, I had to conclude that by attempting to destroy the slider, I had actually somehow repaired it. Of course, now the slider was slightly mangled and jagged, with sharp edges that would have cut me and/or the fabric of the suit, but a little smoothing with a metal file took care of that problem. The slider doesn’t look so great, but it seems to work just fine. I keep going back to the suit and checking it again, and it’s still perfectly zippable. But…how…?
I won’t question it. I can’t question it. My knowledge of zipper mechanics is more extensive than it was two days ago but not extensive enough to explain this mystery. What’s important is that the stupid swimsuit has been languishing for months but now it’s back in the game. I’m going to wear it for my sea swimming class tomorrow. I just have to hope that the “repair” holds and the suit stays on my body so we don’t get a little Birth of Venus action going on when I get out of the water!