Hello to the hands of Swiss engineer Georges de Mestral who invented the hook-and-loop fastener for us who didn't know how to tie our shoelaces until the age of 12!

The idea came to Mestral one day while he was returning from hunting with his dog in the Alps! He started studying the burdock plant (a flower with many small thorns) that had stuck to his clothes and his dog's fur!

He put the plant under a microscope and noticed that it had hundreds of tiny hooks that caught onto anything with small loops (clothes, animal fur, hair, etc). So Mestral was inspired by nature itself, copied this mechanism using artificial materials (nylon), and invented the hook-and-loop fastener! (the hook-and-loop, that is!)

In 1995, he patented his invention, which was as revolutionary as the zipper!

Many people think that (besides hook-and-loop) the official name of the *hook-and-loop fastener* is Velcro, but in reality, that is just the name of the first company that released it (like we say all Barbie dolls; it's something like that here)!