Technological and industrial history of 20th-century Canada engineer, George de Mestral, velcro, a two sided fastening technology based on hooks and loops, was introduced to a number of countries, including Canada, in the late 1950s. In Montreal, Velek Ltd. acquired the exclusive marketing rights for velcro in North and South America and Japan. The format for sound recordings changed in the years just following the war. In the US, Columbia Records introduced the long playing (LP) 33 format in 1948. Columbia made an agreement with Sparton Records, of London, Ontario, established in 1930, for the manufacture and distribution of its LP records in Canada. Not to be
George de Mestral fashion, if he could figure out how to duplicate the hooks and loops. Originally people refused to take him, and the idea, seriously. He took his idea to Lyon, which was then a center of weaving, where he did manage to gain the help of one weaver, who made two cotton strips that worked. However, the cotton wore out quickly, so de Mestral turned to synthetic fibers. He settled on nylon as being the best synthetic after, through trial and error, he eventually discovered that nylon forms hooks that were perfect for the hook side of the fastener when sewn