George de Mestral a Swiss amateur-mountaineer and inventor decided to take his dog for a nature hike one lovely summer day in 1948. They both returned covered with burrs. de Mestral inspected one of the burrs under his microscope and was inspired to use the same mechanism for a fastener. Mestral's idea met with resistance and even laughter, but the inventor 'stuck' by his invention. Together with a weaver from a textile plant in France, Mestal perfected his hook and loop fastener. By trial and error, he realized that nylon when sewn under infrared light, formed tough hooks for the burr side of the fastener. This finished the design, patented in 1955. The inventor formed Velcro Industries to manufacture his invention. Mestral was selling over sixty million yards of Velcro per year. Today it is a multi-million dollar industry.

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