Here are just a few quick easy-to-remember tips. These facts don't necessarily place a garment in a year, but they will help narrow it down.

• Men’s dress trousers continue to have buttons flys thru the 40s.
  
  
• Belt loops on men’s pants started in the early 1920s, coexisting with suspender buttons for years.
  
  
• Metal zippers were used in galoshes and elsewhere since 1905, not used in men's pants until 1927 or on women’s dresses until the late 1930s.
  
  
• YKK - Japan, a zipper company founded in Japan in 1934.
  
  
• Talon Zippers - USA - since 1894.
  
  
• Lightning Zippers- Canada.
  
  
• Eclaire Zippers- France.
  
  
• KIN Zippers - Germany.
  
  
• Coil zippers - invented in 1940, but not in common usage until the early 60s.
  
  
• Side seam zippers - late 1930s-1960s.
  
  
• Short CB neck zippers - mostly 1930s-1940s.
  
  
• Sleeve zippers - usually associated with the 1930s and 1940s, but can also be seen on narrow sleeves in the 60s-80s.
  
  
• Center back dress zippers - seen occasionally in the 1940s and early 50s, but generally later 50s and 60s and almost always from the 70s on.
  
  
• Velcro® invented in 1948, not used in clothing much until 1960s.
  
  
• Vintage slips, bras and garters have metal hardware, not plastic.