Patent Application
20130067692
A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material which is subject to copyright protection. This patent document may show and/or describe matter which is or may become trade dress of the owner. The copyright and trade dress owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent disclosure as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent files or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright and trade dress rights whatsoever.
1. Field
This disclosure relates to garment closure devices, and apparatus for fastening together pieces of fabric or material.
2. Description of the Related Art
Buttons are used extensively on different types of garments, apparel and other materials, and temporarily and releasably fasten one first portion of the garment to another second portion thereof. The first portion of the garment has the button attached thereto, usually by thread or in the form of a stud, while the second portion of the garment has a small slit or hole, commensurate or corresponding in size to the diameter of the button so that the button can be fairly easily pushed through the hole, thereby fastening together the first and second garment portions.
A button is often used on a pair of trousers above the fly thereof, or on a skirt above a zipper, to keep the waistband of the trousers or the skirt held together. Such a button is known as a shank. The term waistband refers to the band of material at the top of a skirt or trousers which typically sits around or near the waist of the wearer. The waistband may be a specifically identifiable band of material or other fabric, or merely that portion at or near the top of the skirt or trousers which will fit around or near the waist of the wearer. The term fabric means a substantially thin, flat, flexible material made of natural or artificial materials, or combinations thereof, made by weaving, knitting, spreading, crocheting, or bonding, and also includes leather, neoprene, and similar materials.
The shank on the waistband of a pair of trousers can be unfastened to open the waistband for the purposes of putting on the trousers, and thereafter fastened to maintain the smaller diameter of the waistband comfortably around the user's waist. In conventional trousers, the left side of the waistband will typically overlie by a short distance the right side of the waistband. The shank is fixed to the right side of the waistband, while the left side of the waistband will have an appropriately sized button hole for releasably receiving the shank. Therefore, the condition of the trousers can alternate between a position in which the shank is unfastened and the waistband is opened (to facilitate putting on and taking off the trousers), and a position in which the shank is fastened to reduce the waistband diameter to a size comfortable on the wearer so that the waistband sits around or near the waist.
In the conventional arrangement described above, the right side of the waistband will be closer to the body, and the left side of the waistband will overlie the right side thereof so that the right side is interposed between the body of the wearer and the left side of the waistband.
Button flies are also known, in which one or more buttons are disposed below the shank.
Referring now to
Referring now to
Referring now to
The base 150 may be formed from a single piece of material such as a metal, metal alloy, plastic, or plastic-like material, and may be machined or extruded to shape. The garment closure device 100 may be comprised of multiple parts permanently or semi-permanently joined together. The joints may be glue or welds.
Referring now to
In the base, the outer surface 128 may have an opening 125 to a channel 126 passing through the front component 120 and which exposes a channel 166 in the center component 160. The channel 166 may have a female thread, and the thread may extend into the channel 126.
The cap 180 may be structured so as to facilitate the display of decorative or ornamental material thereon. The cap 180 may be provided having a decorative portion 182 and a shaft 184. A user may have several caps having different decorative portions, for example of different shape, size, color, configuration, or other appearance attribute. The user may choose a cap according to his or her mood or fashion preferences with a particular outfit. Thus, a cap with one type of decorative portion may be substituted or replaced with another preferred by the wearer with a given outfit. Though the decorative portion 182 has decorative function, it also has a mechanical function in closing a garment.
In use, the shaft 184 can be releasably inserted into the channel 166 of the center component 160. The decorative member 180 may be easily removed and replaced with others according to the whim or fashion sense of the wearer. The knurls on the peripheral edge 142 of the rear component 140 may provide a person with a better grip when attaching and removing caps.
Where the channel 166 has a female thread, the shaft 184 may have a complementary male thread. Instead of a threading, the cap 180 may be releasably secured into the channel 166 using a friction fit, spring lock, magnets or other mechanism which will keep the shaft 184 securely attached in the channel 166 during ordinary usage while permitting a person to remove and replace the decorative member when desired.
The shaft 184 may be sized longer or shorter than the combined length of the two channels 126, 166. The shaft 184 may be sized such that a portion is secured within the channels 126, 166 and a portion lies outside, and this outside portion has a size to accommodate a fabric element when the garment closure device 100 is in use.
The channel 126 provides an alternative or additional attachment interface to the shaft 184. The channel 126 may have features akin to those described with respect to the channel 166, and the two channels may function in concert or as alternatives.
Referring now to
The garment may be, for example, a waistband on a pair of trousers or a skirt, and in that case
With the garment closure device 100 fully installed as shown in
The length of the decorative portion 182 and the center component 160 may be sized to correspond to the thickness and compressability of the fabric members 550, 570 respectively, and may be longer to provide a looser fit. Thus, the length of the shaft 184 extending out of the base 150 may be slightly greater than that of the first fabric member 550, and the length of the center component 160 may be slightly greater than that of the second fabric member 570.
The decorative portion 182 and the front component 120 are in spaced relationship relative to each other and the shaft 184 passes through the eyelet 555 so that the cap 180 cannot be removed from the first fabric member 550 in normal use. The decorative portion 182 and the front component 120 may be configured such they cannot pass through the eyelet 555. For example, the decorative portion 182 and the front component 120 may have respective diameters larger than the eyelet 555. Therefore, the cap 180 when installed in the base 150 may be effectively permanently secured to the first fabric member 550.
In contrast, the front component 120 and rear component 140 are in spaced relationship relative to each other and the center component 160 passes through the keyhole 575 so that the base 150 can be removed from the second fabric member 570 in normal use. The rear component 140 may be configured such that the rear component 140 can pass through the keyhole 575. For example, the rear component 140 may have a diameter smaller than the keyhole 575. Therefore, the base 150 when so placed in the keyhole 575 may be effectively removably secured to the second fabric member 570.
The first fabric member 550 and the second fabric member 570 may be positioned such that the apertures 555, 575 align.
Referring now to
The garment closure device may be used to fasten together pieces of fabric or material, not necessarily in a garment.
Throughout this description, the embodiments and examples shown should be considered as exemplars, rather than limitations on the apparatus and procedures disclosed or claimed. Although many of the examples presented herein involve specific combinations of method acts or system elements, it should be understood that those acts and those elements may be combined in other ways to accomplish the same objectives. With regard to flowcharts, additional and fewer steps may be taken, and the steps as shown may be combined or further refined to achieve the methods described herein. Acts, elements and features discussed only in connection with one embodiment are not intended to be excluded from a similar role in other embodiments.
As used herein, “plurality” means two or more. As used herein, a “set” of items may include one or more of such items. As used herein, whether in the written description or the claims, the terms “comprising”, “including”, “carrying”, “having”, “containing”, “involving”, and the like are to be understood to be open-ended, i.e., to mean including but not limited to. Only the transitional phrases “consisting of” and “consisting essentially of”, respectively, are closed or semi-closed transitional phrases with respect to claims. Use of ordinal terms such as “first”, “second”, “third”, etc., in the claims to modify a claim element does not by itself connote any priority, precedence, or order of one claim element over another or the temporal order in which acts of a method are performed, but are used merely as labels to distinguish one claim element having a certain name from another element having a same name (but for use of the ordinal term) to distinguish the claim elements.
