Who invented Velcro? Henri de Tolouse letrec. Not the crazy painter, but a simple goat herder from Switzerland (see picture of Henri above). Here’s how it happened. Back in 1948, he was walking in the woods near his Swiss mountain home when he noticed his fluffy soft pants were covered with burrs.
“Hmmmmm…” he said to himself. “I have an idea. I shall invent a fastener made out of burrs and soft pants.” He then took some Super Glue and glued these burrs to anything he wanted to fasten. Forks and spoons. Hats. Bologna Sandwiches, etc. Now before heading off to work in the fields, he could attach his hat, lunch and eating utensils to his trousers.
His good friend, another shepherd called George de Mestral, noticed this strange way of carrying stuff and inquired about this curious invention. Henri told George all about it and George, being the smarter guy, got out his microscope and noticed the clever way nature had designed the burrs. He decided to rip off mother nature (and his dumber friend) and came up with a cloth with soft loops and another strip of cloth with small hooks. He decided to call it “Super Hooky Loopy Stuff” and another, even more clever friend said you should call it Velour-crochet since that’s kind of what it was. George said, “That’s a mouth full so I’ll just call it Velcro for short.”
And there you have it. It was patented in 1955 and George made enough money to give away all his sheep and retire to Aruba where he still lives and enjoys scuba diving. He is 113 years old.