Imagine a sheet or strip of gauze cloth on a table. Imagine you have a block of wood with a plastic material that has cuts in it like fish scales, all going one way. You could slide the block one way on the gauze and the fish scales would grab the gauze and move it along the table. When you slide the block the other way, the fish scales wouldn't grab and the block would just slide across the gauze.
Kind of a one-way clutch for gauze. I heard rumor that 3M made something like this but can't find it. Any experience or ideas?