Y'a quelqu'un qu'a raconté de belles histoires sur ses couteaux sur un site dont je ne citerai pas le nom... Et comme je sais que certains ici n'y sont pas (sur site sis-innommé), je me permets de citer le sus-dit quelqu'un, histoire de...
^^
Story 1: the concrete handle
I just realized I never told publicly the full (Fool?) story about the original materials and concepts I developed on my steak knives collection. Let's catch up with that and start with this "story 1" : the concrete handle.
When I was working on the "Spring Heeled Jack" folders collection, I wanted it to be about comic book and street culture, because the main inspiration was Jack "God of cities" Hawksmoor from The Authority, by Warren Ellis. Aside to the comic book material, I decided to think about a possible concrete handle.
When I visited my sister in Berlin, I saw some buildings which were bombed during the war but instead of just rebuilding them, the architect decided to put back the crumbled pieces together and cover them with a glass facade. I thought this was very meaningful but also graphic and I decided to make a handle material which would possess a piece of that.
So we started with building molds out of play-doh, placing a stainless metallic net inside and pouring concrete over it. Then we would break the "slab" on purpose and have it stabilized with epoxy resin. The basic ingredients were costless but the work involved brought this knife on top of my pricelist.
I was very satisfied with the result but I also wanted to work on concrete differently for a steak knife version. I was thinking of displaying a batch of knives together and have them spray painted by a graffiti artist, but I was saving this for later.
One day, I got a message from Matt Orlando at Amass (CPH), whose fine dining restaurant built in a former concrete wharehouse with a graffiti scene changing every year, was also the main inspiration when I first thought about painted concrete. I loved very much the contrast between the rough casual material and the spectacular quality of cuisine and service there. He just told me : "We need to talk about knives, could you come over?".
When I got there, he went like that : "I saw your folding knife with a concrete handle. I think we should make a table version and have it painted by the graffiti artists I'm working with".
This was a true moment of epiphany! The guy who unknowingly inspired me the idea, later asked me to make it happen.
Story 2 : car tyre handled Chef knife.
I didn't want to rush and make kitchen knives, since I had the opportunity to create a nice range in a previous job and I was reluctant to go for it too soon and maybe make something not as good. Meanwhile, making steak knives was keeping me busy enough...
But a lot of Chef friends were keeping asking me to make such knives. So I had to take a moment and think seriously about it. I wanted to create something cool above all things (given I knew how to take care of the quality and function).
I had the idea of using car tyre for many reasons. I wanted it to be the opposite of smooth and classy (I've personally seen way too many Japanese knives and I'm now bored to the bones with them). Also the grip was quite awesome especially with wet hands. Then I live in the place in France where the Michelin headquarters are located. And last but not least, I wanted to tell this joke to the chefs : now you have something from Michelin, Mate!
Finally, the name "Unfuck the world" was a tribute to Prophets of Rage of course. I think it needs to be said sometimes, especially since the hospitality world like many others can be fucked up sometimes and we all have a responsibility to try and change it.
Story 3 : white Corian and bamboo.
I worked on that look first for the "why so serious?" folding knives series. The original idea was to try and achieve a post-Scandinavian design. I wanted something with a straight shape, dynamic and with a complex volume involving angles. Since I wanted to work only with non-precious materials, I also wanted to pair a pure white synthetic thing with the bamboo fibers, seamlessly.
Most of the inspiration came from a detail on the armrest from a chair designed by @noeduchaufourlawrance who I believe to be one of the most accurately contemporary designer of our time.
I gave one of these folders to my friend Antonin before he opened @quinsouparis. A while after, when I visited him and showed him my first steak knives samples, he told me : "OK they look nice but why don't you try and make something more similar to the knife you gave me?“
So I went back to work to figure out how to create a mounting system that would give the same feeling and this happened.
Since then, this knife has been the most iconic among my tableware collections.
Story 4 : aluminium chips.
This one is particularly meaningful to me. It's a story about working class heroes and probably my most provocative and political work.
Back in 2002, I worked short term at the biggest factory in town (closed now). I was working at the cleaning facility, charging and discharging the conveyer belt with boxes going throughout a trichlorethylene pool. This factory was making a lot of cylindrical things, from automobile parts to bullets for the choppers machine guns. Everything was done with automated lathes. The place had hundreds of them.
All of the metallic shavings were carried through a never ending stream all the way to a single room about 6 square meters wide. We could see it every time we went on a break to the coffee machine, through a tiny window. This room was underneath the walkway.
There was a man working in this room. Alone. Each wall was like a waterfall of aluminum chips and his job was, using a perch, to make sure nothing would get stuck. It made me think about this scene in Star Wars in the garbage compactor. It felt like this guy could be overwhelmed anytime. His position was crucial but no one was giving him any credit.
Later I wanted to give this guy a tribute. I also wanted to bring dirt in the culinary world where everything is about hygiene. I wanted to subtly remember the wealthy guests in fine dinning restaurants of this reality. Dirt exists. People are getting dirty while you're enjoying this. And Chefs should remember where they come from. Really, we're closer to this guy than to the 1%. We're glorified working class.
Story 5 : comic books.
As I told you earlier, this material was developed for the Spring Heeled Jack series, which was urban culture and comics themed. I later adapted it on the "Not just a pretty face" steak knives collection.
In my opinion, American super heroes comic books are never as good as when they're written by British guys. I believe that this medium was originally used as a propaganda to strengthen the patriotic feeling within the US population. The early days have seen Superman fighting Nazis and Japanese soldiers, later came Captain America, and so on...
But authors from the UK don't give a shit about the comic code and the American pledge of allegiance. When they're in charge of the scenario, they shit the bed no manner what. And that's what I like the most.
Among my favorite scenarists, I can name Warren Ellis, Garth Ennis, Mark Millar, Grant Morrison, Alan Moore, etc.
I decided to only use for this material the graphic novels these guys wrote. The process is quite similar to a "paper damascus", laying resin between pages and then using the solid book in its whole thickness. We never try and control what's gonna pop up on the surface, we just grind into it.
I didn't want to have too much of an obvious result, with say the face of the hero fully recognizable across the handle but rather something expressionistic. What I like the most, is when some out-of-context text appears, creating a whole new cryptic story. I love very much the art of Jean-Michel Basquiat because of the text, among other things.
Sometimes it doesn't even look like comics, you just see layers and can maybe guess it's really pages. It's about using an artificial, ordoned stuff and make it random, like a natural material.
You don't need to show-off if you know your real value.
Story 6 : tartan micarta.
When I started with my own company, 5 years ago, I decided to get rid of all the precious materials as well as all the exotic woods and anything animal based (except for moose antlers, that you can collect without harming the beast).
"Micarta", made from layers of fabric and resin was always done with plain colored linens and I wanted to add some patterns to it. I also wanted the new materials I was going to create to carry a reference to a culture or a sub-culture.
Since my first folding knives collection was about punk rock, I started with scottish tartan, the red and black one.
It took me nearly a year to get something completely solid and seamless, without any bubble that could have caught stains during the polishing process.
It was later meant to be adapted to the steak knives range, so I needed it to be resistant enough for any hard use in a restaurant.
It became the flagship of my "Tableware's not dead!" collection.