In 1917, Swedish-American engineer Gideon Sundback patented the separating hookless fastener, the direct forerunner of the modern zip. His design used interlocking metal teeth on two tapes drawn together by a slider, vastly improving on earlier hook-and-eye fasteners. The zip transformed clothing manufacture and daily dress, becoming an emblem of modernity whose very name entered the everyday idiom that poets of the interwar years used to capture the pace and efficiency of the machine age.

The improvement of the zipper in 1917 marked a significant advancement in everyday convenience, which was reflected in modern consumer-age literature. Poets began to use the zipper as a symbol of progress and the complexities of modern life, exploring themes of attachment and detachment.