The innovation that changed fashion forever

At the fashion exhibition hosted by New York's Museum of Modern Art, the zipper gets its due

What makes fashion modern? Is it the fabric? The cut? The way it tells you all you need to know about the wearer? I began thinking about this question last year when Paola Antonelli, senior curator of design and architecture at the Museum of Modern Art, recruited me to contribute to “Items: Is Fashion Modern?” The exhibition, which opens on October 1, is only the second the museum has devoted to fashion, following a 1944 predecessor put on by the maverick architect Bernard Rudofsky.

As a prelude to the exhibit, I participated in a day of short talks on sartorial