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 40’s.
  
  
• Belt loops on men’s pants started in the early 1920’s, 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 1930’s.
  
  
• 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 60’s.
  
  
• Side seam zippers - late 1930’s-1960’s.
  
  
• Short CB neck zippers - mostly 1930’s-1940’s.
  
  
• Sleeve zippers - 1930’s and 1940’s.
  
  
• Center back dress zippers - seen occasionally in the 1940’s and early 50s, but generally later 50’s and 60’s and always from the 70’s on.
  
  
• Velcro® invented in 1948, not used in clothing much until 1960’s.
  
  
• Vintage slips, bras and garters have metal hardware, not plastic.