A HAMPSHIRE inventor is hoping to seal up a $10 billion industry after winning a global patent for ‘3D zips’.

Wendy Howard, based in Winchester, has won the exclusive rights to technology which allows fastenings to go around corners in three dimensions – and now she wants to transform fashion and luggage design.

The former Peter Symonds College design teacher concocted what she thought was an impossible invention a decade ago, while studying at Brunel University.

Now she has created ZipZag, a design which uses reshaped teeth to fit bowed lines.

Ms Howard said the product could solve decades-old problems for luggage manufacturers, revolutionise the $10 billion zip industry and give fashion bosses a “field day”.

She said: “I think it’s going to be something that designers are going to have great fun playing with.

“Fashion designers, when they graduate from college, design openings into garments and things that can’t exist. They get rapped on the knuckles.

“I’m really excited by possibilities that they’re going to be able to explore.

“It’s quite an achievement to get a patent in such a well-established field as zips.”

Daily Echo:

The development was aided by moulding design specialist Andy Honour and inventor Ray Pitman using money from personal savings and a grant from the Manufacturing Advisory Service.

Ms Howard’s company, Raw IP, is now looking for a manufacturing partner.

She said “big firms” had expressed an interest, but she is contractually bound to keep her mouth fastened.