Replacing the zipper on a winter jacket

Date:

Pre-2020 through 2021

What I did:

Before

The zipper of my client's winter jacket was broken. It would sometimes zip up, but the teeth would often fall apart. At first, I tried fixing it by squeezing the zipper pull with pliers. That seemed to help a bit — the zipper successfully zipped up and down several times — but the zipper still failed to zip with enough frequency that I realized I had to go ahead and replace it.

red winter jacket with zipper broken (partially zipped up, but zipper teeth don't stay together) — Before: the zipper would zip up partway, but then the zipper teeth would separate.

closeup of bottom of red winter jacket, showing zipper partially zipped up and with zipper teeth disengaging from eachother — Before: closeup of the jacket's broken zipper

After

I replaced the zipper, which was successful but initially challenging because of all of the many layers involved — main fabric, primaloft insulation, lining, pockets, and the little tab covering the zipper at the top.

red winter jacket front view with zipper zipped up — After: jacket with new zipper, zipped up.

red winter jacket front view with zipper unzipped — After: jacket with zipper unzipped

closeup of red winter jacket with replaced zipper, zipped up — After: closeup with jacket zipped up

closeup of replaced zipper in jacket, unzipped, showing top tab — After: closeup of the new zipper, unzipped, with the little tab of fabric covering it at the top

red winter jacket with replaced zipper, partially unzipped, pulled open to show lining and inside of jacket — After: partially unzipped zipper, with jacket held open to show the lining

red winter jacket with replaced zipper, partially unzipped, to show front inside facing — After: another view of the new zipper in the jacket, partially unzipped to show how the zipper fits neatly in among all the layers.