Why we chose them
Riri is a Swiss maker of high-end zips and fastenings and one of the most authoritative names in luxury fashion hardware. Founded in 1936 in Mendrisio, in the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino, it has spent nine decades turning the humblest part of a garment — the zip — into a mark of quality in its own right. Its guiding idea, "excellence in details," captures a belief Archibald shares: that the small, often-overlooked components are exactly where true quality shows.
Riri's reputation was built on engineering as much as finish. In 1950 it patented the first die-cast zipper on nylon, merging teeth and tape into a single piece, and it has kept innovating since — from the waterproof Storm zip, which won the Swiss Technology Award in 2004, to the first stainless-steel zip in 2018. Through the 2000s and 2010s it grew into the Riri Group, bringing complementary specialists in-house: Cobrax for buttons, snaps and rivets, plus dedicated operations for plating, die-casting and metal components. That vertical integration is why a Riri fastening feels and works the way it does — every stage controlled to a single standard.
Since 2023 Riri has been part of the Swiss-listed Oerlikon Group, operating as Oerlikon Riri while remaining the reference point it has always been for luxury houses. Its zips, buttons, metal components and fashion jewels are made to certified environmental and quality standards (ISO 9001, 14001 and 45001) and specified by the world's leading fashion and leather-goods brands precisely because the hardware is expected to outlast everything around it.
