When it comes to dexterity few things are as challenging as zippers. Tiny little tabs designed to be pulled with a pinch between the index finger and thumb. Not quadriplegic friendly.
My simple solution for a lot of years was split rings. I think every keychain in my parents' home was scavenged for this purpose. The fact that my dad had a small collection of keychains help my inventory of split rings to grow quickly. It's remarkable how many zippers there are to benefit from a permanent ring on them. Zippers are everywhere.
The one place that I most wanted my adaptation to be less visible was on the fly of my pants. For that location I chose to use a small black zip tie, as barely visible on the pair of jeans in the photo above. Zip ties like that do wear out in time and a few did break on me, leaving me with a bit of a struggle to do up my pants until it could be replaced with a new zip tie. Thankfully that zipper does not need to be started like on a full-length jacket zipper. I have no secret method to assist in starting a zipper on a jacket. That is simply a matter of trial, error and patience.
Though I still use split rings for a lot of purposes, I have transitioned to using paracord for most of my zipper pulls. There are a myriad of colours to choose from and their flexibility can provide minor advantages over split rings in certain circumstances. I have even begun transitioning away from bungee cord and toward paracord for my pant hooks. The snaps that connect two ends of paracord together to make a pullable tab and loop, like those attached to the yellow and black paracord in the photo above, are cheap and abundant on places like eBay. However, I found the ones I chose to not hold nearly as well as they should. I made certain to make my selection based on the size of paracord I was using, prepare the ends by cutting and melting them and made certain the snap was applied properly, but often it would let go at inopportune times.
The alternative is to simply thread your length of paracord through the zipper eyelet then tie the two lengths in a half hitch, as I have done for the zipper laying immediately to the left of the pouch, the second one to the right of the pink lanyard. A more interesting alternative is to tie an interesting knot in the end and use it as a lanyard, essentially a simplified version of the lanyard I tied to be my keychain. As frequently as we are forced to compromise form for the purposes of function, this is one of those simple places that I appreciate the more decorative look of a diamond knot lanyard over a simple half hitch. I decided to get extra fancy and do a double diamond knot for the longer zipper pull on my camera bag.
Hit me in the comments with your zipper adaptations, if you have any unique methods.
Source: paracord and snaps – eBay. Split rings – dollar store or craft supply store.
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