Check your sources - The Battle of the Fly

Summary

A Wikipedia statement about the zipper versus the button fly has turned into a story repeated by authoritative sources that in the pivotal year of 1937 Esquire magazine had a "Battle of the Fly" contest where the zipper won, with the memorable statement that a button fly had the "possibility of unintentional and embarrassing disarray".  The Wikipedia statement has no supporting reference, and in fact this entire scenario is unsupported by available online evidence, turning out to probably be a conflation of a (possibly apocryphal) 1937 event or fashion trend in France with advertisements in Esquire in the early 1930s.

SIDEBAR: My analysis depends on an assumption that Esquire's online archive search delivers complete results.  The site does say "Every Article.  Every Page.  Every issue of Esquire ever published.  1933 to today."  END SIDEBAR

UPDATE 2022-09-18: It looks like the source for the phrase "Battle of the Fly" is the book Zipper: An Exploration in Novelty by Robert Friedel (1994).  END UPDATE (see next update)

UPDATE 2023-06-09: It seems highly likely that the "Battle of the Fly" story is a mythologized reuse of the phrase from Zipper: An Exploration in Novelty (1994) by Robert Friedel.  In the book the phrase is used in passing to refer to a marketing effort by Talon, it is definitely not about any sort of actual event where the zipper was compared with other fasteners.  END UPDATE

Zipper: An Exploration in Novelty

The Independent reviewed Zipper: An Exploration in Novelty under the remarkably awkward headline "Hookless hookers: the battle of the fly".  This review was the only definitive source I could find specifically stating that this term is used in the book:

But he notices also, as he narrates what became known as "the battle of the fly" ... - The Independent, "Hookless hookers: the battle of the fly", book review by Robert Winder, 21 April 1995

It seems likely this book is the source but the information has gotten jumbled along the way.  END UPDATE

An Uncited Assertion

If you try to find out why jeans mostly have zippers rather than button fly, googling brings up endless variations of this Wikipedia paragraph:

The zipper beat the button in 1937 in the "Battle of the Fly", after French fashion designers raved over zippers in men's trousers. Esquire declared the zipper the "Newest Tailoring Idea for Men" and among the zippered fly's many virtues was that it would exclude "The Possibility of Unintentional and Embarrassing Disarray."^{[citation needed]} - Wikipedia: Zipper - History section

There are quite a few assertions sitting behind that "[citation needed]".

This raises the question of whether anyone actually checked that Esquire made that statement, and whether the statement was made in 1937 (as could be implied by the paragraph). The answer appears to be no.

Endless Variations

It's hard to know how much of the scrambled way this info has propagated is due to past Wikipedia edits and how much is due to current mis-reading of the Wikipedia entry, but this paragraph shows up in variations in lots of authoritative sources including the Smithsonian:

The upswing for the zipper came in 1937 when the zipper beat the button in the 1937 "Battle of the Fly" and french fashion designers began to rave over the zipper. Esquire magazine declared the zipper the "Newest Tailoring Idea for Men" and of zipper's many virtues it would exclude the "possibility of unintentional and embarrassing disarray." - Smithsonian blog "Unbound", The Up and Down History of the Zipper, May 3, 2010

There is an interesting sequence issue, as this Smithsonian article predates the Wikipedia entry.  Is this the origin of the Battle of the Fly?  The Smithsonian cites two books:

UPDATE 2022-09-18:

1. Talon, inc. : a romance of achievement / / an abridgement of the original manuscript by James Gray to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the company ; [edited by Stanley H. Brown]. Chicago : Rand McNally, c1963.
2. Zipper: An Exploration in Novelty by Robert Friedel (1994, reprinted in 1996)

As a niche corporate history, the Talon book is basically unavailable to me, but I have ordered the Zipper book (it is not available in electronic form).  I could also try contacting the author but if he's around he may not be all that keen revisiting a book he wrote over 28 years ago.

I speculated whether Talon's corporate hagiography is the origin of the story, but it seems clear now it is the Zipper book.  You'll find out more about the Talon company below.

END UPDATE

There were also various 100th anniversary quick takes in 2013, from e.g. the CBC:

Esquire magazine raved in 1937 that the zipper would help men avoid "the possibility of unintentional and embarrassing disarray." - CBC News - Science - Apr 29, 2013 - Zipper anniversary: 10 bits of trivia to impress the pants off you

Notice how it's now Esquire magazine in 1937, the date having apparently drifted due to a misreading of the Wikipedia paragraph.

Here's the Chicago Tribune:

It is said that Esquire magazine put the zipper in every other intimate place. In 1937, the magazine hosted a "Battle of the Fly" contest pitting the zipper against the button fly, according to the Encyclopedia of Modern Everyday Inventions. Game, set, match, Sundback's secure zipper. It helped avoid "the possibility of unintentional and embarrassing disarray," the magazine concluded. - Chicago Tribune - Oct 16, 2013 - The Zipper (1893)

So now, wait, Esquire hosted a "Battle of the Fly" contest in 1937, according to the Encyclopedia of Modern Everyday Inventions (circa 2003), and Esquire concluded that contest with the memorable "unintentional and embarrassing disarray" phrase. But that's just not true.  That's not even what the Encyclopedia says, at least in the 2003 version available to search online.  The Encyclopedia says

In 1937, men's clothing designers began to experiment with zippers in trousers.  The zipper fly was praised by Esquire magazine as helping prevent "the possibility of unintentional and embarrassing display". - Encyclopedia of Modern Everyday Inventions, Fasteners section, page 121 "The Zipper", from Google Books, search inside this book

The Wikipedia entry was only created on August 22, 2003 (without this information).  Either Wikipedia ends up getting this story from the Encyclopedia or elsewhere, or I'm looking at a post-2003 revised version of the Encyclopedia text in Google Books.

Incidentally zippers in trousers are actually from 1933 or earlier.

So the Chicago Tribune, an authority, is citing an Encyclopedia as an authority and a magazine as an authority, but the Encyclopedia text isn't true.  (It's not clear what the source of the Encyclopedia's statements might have been.) Basically the Tribune managed to invent an entire Esquire event based on misread sources that are in turn based on an unsupported Wikipedia source. The ultimate is when in 2014 Esquire online repeats this story about itself, creating an apparently authoritative citation to a statement it never actually made.

fashionistos and functionalists alike saw the auto-clasp's allure and initiated the Battle of the Fly… which was swiftly and definitively won by the zipper in the 1930s. Even this illustrious publication in 1937 declared (and still does declare) it the superior idea in men's fashion, both for style and for its potential to avoid, "the possibility of unintentional and embarrassing disarray." - Esquire, The Battle of the Button Fly, June 9, 2014

A Very Different Story Pre-Wikipedia

In Esquire's defense, they do have a good article about the zipper from 1989, with rather surprising references to Brave New World, and less surprising ones to the royals as trendsetters

Men didn’t have zippered trousers when the book was written. They had buttons. Zippers were still a novelty in 1932, and in Huxley’s view they were symbolic of the mechanical and dehumanized future that lay in store for all of us. ... Custom tailors disdained zippered flies as vulgar, and mass manufacturers claimed they were too expensive—a zipper added a dollar to the cost of a pair of trousers; buttons cost only two cents. That’s where matters stood until 1934, when the Prince of Wales, the Duke of York, and their second cousin “Dickie” Mountbatten suddenly started wearing zippered flies. - Esquire, The Zipper, by John Berendt, May 1, 1989

It's interesting how in 1989, pre-google and pre-Wikipedia, this entire "Battle of the Fly" narrative doesn't exist.

Getting to the Truth - Unintentional and Embarrassing Disarray

Actually searching the Esquire archive for the phrase "unintentional and embarrassing disarray" returns zero articles, but two advertisements from the Talon Hookless Fastener Company, from September 1933 and February 1934.  If I change to search just "embarrassing disarray" I get a total of twelve Talon ads running to November 1936.

The September 1933 advertisement extols the virtues of Talon's "slide fastener" (they couldn't say zipper, because it's actually ZIPPER® trademark B.F. Goodrich, and Goodrich was assertive in defending its trademark at the time).

Here's just the first two of the ten-point list in the Talon ad.

Why TALON means new distinction in trousers

1. Talon eliminates ugliness of the button fly.  Side wrinkles, gaps between buttons, and bulkiness are gone.
2. Talon excludes the possibility of unintentional and embarrassing disarray.

This text displayed beside a man wearing flat-fronted trousers that would be ridiculously high-waisted today.

Getting to the Truth - The Newest Tailoring Idea for Men

The BBC News says:

Esquire magazine hailed the zipper's use on trousers in the late 1930s and declared it the “Newest Tailoring Idea for Men”. - BBC News, The ingenious invention to better the button, 23rd March 2017

A link, an actual link to a source.  Except the source is wrong.  The source is the rather imposingly-titled The Encyclopedia of the Industrial Revolution in World History, Volume 3 (circa 2010) and on page 922 it says:

In 1937 a French fashion magazine declared that there were more trousers being made with zippers on their flies than buttons, and Esquire magazine in the United States proclaimed the zipper as the "newest tailoring idea for men," ... - The Encyclopedia of the Industrial Revolution in World History, Volume 3 - Google Books, search inside this book

But this is just the same rabbit hole all over again. In any case, it demonstrates again a second phrase attributed to Esquire is that the zipper is "the newest tailoring idea for men", but searching the Esquire archive reveals the sole mention of this phrase is in the self-same Talon advertisement from September 1933.  In starting its list of benefits, it has a header reading:

TALON
Slide Fastener for Trousers
Newest Tailoring Idea for Men

So both phrases that are attributed to an Esquire article are actually a few lines in a September 1933 advertisement, a segment which surely must be fair use for me to reproduce.

And here, for possibly the first time on the Internet, is the actual primary source link:

Esquire magazine, "Hookless Fastener Company" (Talon advertisement), September 1, 1933.

It is kind of ridiculous than an endlessly-recirculated set of phrases trace down to a single advertisement.

Getting to the Truth - The Battle of the Fly

NOTE: The investigation below was before I had strong signals indicating that the Zipper book is the source for this phrase.  It's still a useful investigation.

One data point is there are zero search results in the Esquire archive for "battle of the fly".  It seems unlikely the magazine has any association with this phrase, let alone hosting some kind of contest in 1937. Googling has the problem that all the results are just rephrases of the Wikipedia paragraph with no primary sources.  Even when the sources seem primary they're not. Basically all I have to go on is something in France in 1937 "Battle of the Fly".

If this was a thing in France, I would hope it would show up in the French Wikipedia article Fermeture éclair, but it doesn't. Setting aside Google translate's fanciful notion that "pants fly" translates as "pantalon voler" (which means literally pants flying in the air) the actual translation of trouser fly is "la braguette".  So if this "Battle of the Fly" is a real thing, it should be something like "Bataille de la braguette".

This being France, one hit is on the history of seins nus, which asserts in passing that there has never been a battle of the fly, although they mean this more in the sense of a battle to have men expose below the waist in the same way that women expose above the waist.

Cette mode scandaleuse d'une virilité exhibée dans des étuis rigides inspire aussi les sarcasmes d'Etienne Pasquier, la braguette " représentant par l'extérieur chose grosse et grande, combien que le plus de temps, il n'y ait rien ou bien peu dedans ". Mais, malgré les railleries, il n'y a point eu dans l'Histoire de " bataille de la braguette " comme il y eut une " bataille des seins nus "... - Le blog de Philippe Poisson (not safe for work), Gabrielle d'Estrées lance la mode des seins nus, 30 Août 2009 (not safe for work)

Searching Google France in French this is the one and only result. If I broaden my search, using "braguette" I unsurprisingly mostly get histories of the pants fly, with assertions that in France at least, it's the 1960s that mark the transition to the zipper, not 1937.

Dans les années 1960, lorsque les boutons cédèrent leur place à la fermeture éclair puisque ces derniers se décousaient régulièrement. | "In the 1960s, when the buttons gave way to the zipper" - On sait pourquoi la braguette est inversée sur les jeans et des hommes et des femmes, 11 juillet 2021

Let's try the history of the zipper, fermeture éclair histoire.

• franceinfo - 22/04/2017 - La fermeture à glissière a 100 ans
• Europe 1 - Historiquement vôtre - Les origines - 31/08/2020 - Aux origines de la fermeture éclair par David Castello-Lopes

The two French sources above cite the use of the zipper by American army in their boots in the first world war.  They also enjoy mentions of the zipper as scandalising puritan sensibilities.  But there is no mention of the 1937 Battle of the Fly.

At this point I think the 1937 Battle of the Fly may be an invention out of whole cloth.

I checked every table of contents for Esquire in 1937.  "And Fly with Safety" in June 1937 looked promising but it turned out to be about seaplanes.  There are lots of Talon ads, including prominently placed e.g. a full page ad on the left page next to the table of contents on the right page in the July 1937 issue.  "Knights in Armor" was a last hope in the December 1937 episode, but it is about actual suits of armor.

So on a scan, there is zero mention of zippers or this probably-imaginary "Battle of the Fly" in any 1937 Esquire. I would be happy to be corrected.

The most likely scenario now seems to be that pro-zipper, anti-buttonfly Talon's corporate hagiography book conjures up some "Battle of the Fly" that they won, and that's what is cited by the Smithsonian, and then in turn that's what got picked up in Wikipedia.

UPDATE 2022-09-18: The most likely scenario is that the term is in the Zipper book but may not have been widely used, and certainly wasn't used in Esquire.  END UPDATE

To wrap up, let's get the sequencing of changes from the Wikipedia entry history.

Getting to the Truth - Wikipedia History

The Wikipedia Zipper article was created on August 22, 2003, without the Battle of the Fly story. For almost seven years, the relevant paragraph was an almost unaltered and (as far as I know) historically accurate set of statements, here's the last example from 03:49, August 10, 2010:

The zipper slowly became popular for children's clothing and men's trousers in the 1920s and 1930s. In the early 1930s the haute couture designer Elsa Schiaparelli featured zippers in her avant-garde gowns, helping it to become acceptable in women's clothing. In 1934, Tadao Yoshida founded a company called San-S Shokai in downtown Tokyo. Later, this company would change its name to YKK and become the world's largest manufacturer of zippers and fastening products. By World War II, the zipper had become widely used in Europe and North America, and after the war quickly spread through the rest of the world. - Wikipedia - Zipper (03:49, August 10, 2010)

Then all of a sudden on August 17, 2010 the Battle of the Fly appears out of nowhere, courtesy of "Gagakong":

In the 1930's, a sales campaign began for children's clothing featuring zippers. The campaign praised zippers for promoting self-reliance in young children by making it possible for them to dress in self-help clothing. The zipper beat the button in the 1937 in the "Battle of the Fly," when French fashion designers raved over zippers in men's trousers. Esquire magazine declared the zipper the "Newest Tailoring Idea for Men" and among the zippered fly's many virtues was that it would exclude "The Possibility of Unintentional and Embarrassing Disarray." - Wikipedia - Zipper (22:06, August 17, 2010)

This unreferenced paragraph is never corrected for the next 12 years, other than getting a [citation needed] tag.

Gagakong made seven edits to Wikipedia (including two to Zipper) from August 1, 2010 to August 18, 2010 and then according to their contributions log https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Gagakong has never made an edit since.

Given the sequencing of events, it looks like Gagakong may have taken the "Battle of the Fly" in good faith from the Smithsonian source.  Otherwise, they may have just made it up, and if they remember this moment's editing at all, are delighted that it has survived and propagated to authoritative sources.

NOTE: The above reposted from my personal blog, with minor modifications.