Every gentleman needs a pocket knife, you'll never know when it comes in handy, and while opinions on this differ, I personally think it's very classy when you're having a big piece of meat at a restaurant and you've got your own razor sharp knife to cut it with.
So, without further ado, I present to you: my Laguiole knife,
these knives are known the world over (and copied/faked a lot) but they originally come from a small town in the French region Aveyron.
Traditionally every boy in the region at a certain stage in his life would get given a knife like this, and this sort of symbolized his passing to adulthood.
Nowadays they are hugely popular and have been redesigned numerous times, by people like Phillip Starck, Sonya Rykiel and Courreges.
My family has a house 15 minutes from Laguiole, going there every summer I saw it grow from a very old-fashioned small town to a small city that thrives on the "knife industry".
A couple of summers ago I decided that I wanted to buy one of these for myself from money that my grandfather left me.
Actually being able to go to the town where these come from only made the choice more difficult, seeing as there is a different knife shop every 5 meters.
I had to back there 3 times before I finally decided wich knife I wanted to get.
What made deciding a bit easier was that I decided that I wanted a completely matte chrome one, as opposed to the traditional shiny silver with gold details. I also wanted a wood handle.
I chose to get one with a corkscrew since it's always good to be able to open a bottle of wine wherever you are and because it makes the overall appearance of the knife a bit more sophisticated and a little less "aggressive" as it is such a sleek, long and pointy blade.
The shape of this type handle with the corkscrew is sometimes referred to as the "woman's leg"
Every part of these knifes is handcrafted with great care and there were versions that had the ornamental carving all along the blade as well.
Note the typical bee on top, this is maybe the only part that I'm not 100% sure about on mine, traditionally it's a lot more detailed and the way this one is stylized makes it look a bit too much like a fly in my opinion.
Apart from the regular differences like colours, size, larger rounded handle, corkscrew or not, ice pick sort of thingy, different materials for the handle etc etc, there's also a huge variety of different details and each workshop again specializes in certain ones such as full wood handles (no visible metal apart from the blade), Damascus steel blade, ornamental carved handles etc.
I went for a slightly updated simple classic design.
(This pattern of those small metal points is the traditional one named "shepherd cross")
Every workshop also has their own logo, some of them so awfully big and obnoxious this made picking one alot easier....
Traditionally this part is made from horn, but I wanted wood.
This didn't make the decision easier since there were lots of different types to choose from, in the end I had to choose between 3 types, Olive, Rosewood and Juniper.
I ended up going for Juniper since that's something that traditionally grows in the region. The Rosewood was also beautiful but I found it too shiny and I preferred the grain of this one.
This is truly an amazing knife and I'm still very happy with it every time I use it.
So, without further ado, I present to you: my Laguiole knife,
these knives are known the world over (and copied/faked a lot) but they originally come from a small town in the French region Aveyron.
Traditionally every boy in the region at a certain stage in his life would get given a knife like this, and this sort of symbolized his passing to adulthood.
Nowadays they are hugely popular and have been redesigned numerous times, by people like Phillip Starck, Sonya Rykiel and Courreges.
My family has a house 15 minutes from Laguiole, going there every summer I saw it grow from a very old-fashioned small town to a small city that thrives on the "knife industry".
A couple of summers ago I decided that I wanted to buy one of these for myself from money that my grandfather left me.
Actually being able to go to the town where these come from only made the choice more difficult, seeing as there is a different knife shop every 5 meters.
I had to back there 3 times before I finally decided wich knife I wanted to get.
What made deciding a bit easier was that I decided that I wanted a completely matte chrome one, as opposed to the traditional shiny silver with gold details. I also wanted a wood handle.
I chose to get one with a corkscrew since it's always good to be able to open a bottle of wine wherever you are and because it makes the overall appearance of the knife a bit more sophisticated and a little less "aggressive" as it is such a sleek, long and pointy blade.
The shape of this type handle with the corkscrew is sometimes referred to as the "woman's leg"
Every part of these knifes is handcrafted with great care and there were versions that had the ornamental carving all along the blade as well.
Note the typical bee on top, this is maybe the only part that I'm not 100% sure about on mine, traditionally it's a lot more detailed and the way this one is stylized makes it look a bit too much like a fly in my opinion.
Apart from the regular differences like colours, size, larger rounded handle, corkscrew or not, ice pick sort of thingy, different materials for the handle etc etc, there's also a huge variety of different details and each workshop again specializes in certain ones such as full wood handles (no visible metal apart from the blade), Damascus steel blade, ornamental carved handles etc.
I went for a slightly updated simple classic design.
(This pattern of those small metal points is the traditional one named "shepherd cross")
Every workshop also has their own logo, some of them so awfully big and obnoxious this made picking one alot easier....
Traditionally this part is made from horn, but I wanted wood.
This didn't make the decision easier since there were lots of different types to choose from, in the end I had to choose between 3 types, Olive, Rosewood and Juniper.
I ended up going for Juniper since that's something that traditionally grows in the region. The Rosewood was also beautiful but I found it too shiny and I preferred the grain of this one.
This is truly an amazing knife and I'm still very happy with it every time I use it.