The Wall Street Journal - 07.03.2020 - 08.03.2020

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. **** Saturday/Sunday, March 7 - 8, 2020 |D1

THE RIGHT AGE FOR BERETS?

Our menswear editor asks if he’s too

young to pull off the chapeauD3

PRETTY FLY

In Patagonia, handsome scenery boosts

the pleasures of fly-fishingD5

INTIMIDATED INTO TIPPING

The pros and cons of screens that

‘suggest’ gratuitiesD10

OFF DUTY

The

Geneva Auto

No-Show

How coronavirus

affected the

eventD10

FASHION|FOOD|DESIGN|TRAVEL|GEAR

knife Mr. Kramer had made for Anthony Bourdain

fetched nearly a quarter-million dollars in an auction

of Mr. Bourdain’s estate. Yes, the blade contained

iron from meteorites, and of course the late chef’s

mystique added a hefty premium. Still, newly auc-

tioned chef’s knives by Mr. Kramer without such

stellar pedigrees routinely fetch $25,000 to $30,000.

Mr. Kramer’s work has come to epitomize the ele-

vation of the kitchen knife from primal tool to func-

tional art object. Cult knifemakers are also influenc-

ing what mass-market producers sell, and to whom.

How did we get here? In “Kitchen Knives: The

New Bling,” a paper published in “Food & Material

Culture, Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on

Food and Cookery” in 2013, Peter Hertzmann postu-

lates that open kitchens are at least partly responsi-

ble. “Throughout much of the first half of the 20th

century, people displayed their status not with

kitchen knives but with carving knives,” he writes.

But once cooking became more visible, status slicers

migrated from dining room to kitchen, and purchase

decisions came to “revolve around appearance and

perceived intrinsic value rather than function.”

Mr. Hertzmann theorizes that Global knives from

Japan “may have been the start of knives as bling.”

PleaseturntopageD6

Why Pay

$24,000

For a Kitchen Knife?

For those who lust after handmade blades from cult knifemakers, waiting lists are getting longer. But mass-market

makers are also raising their game—and putting some pretty sharp products within reach

F. MARTIN RAMIN/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Notched heel,

for a more

comfortable grip

Composite of

multiple carbon

steel alloys

101-layer

deep-etched Chevron

Damascus steel

01 carbon steel

blade—durable, easy

to sharpen

Made by Japan’s

oldest Western-style

knifemaker

W

HEN BLADESMITHBob Kramer

put the “The Last Salmon,” a

handmade 10.5-inch chef’s knife,

up for auction on his website re-

cently, the bidding went the way

these things usually do. Within the first half-hour,

the blade, which shows a scene of a pod of orcas pur-

suing a single fish, had been bid up to $10,000. An

hour after that, $17,750. When the virtual gavel fi-

nally fell after 24 hours, the final price was $24,000.

It was, arguably, a bargain. Back in November, a

BYMATTHEWKRONSBERG

ARCHITECTURAL WANDERINGS

A fan of Bauhaus design goes to Tel Aviv,

where the style abundantly floweredD8

Inside

GOT CHOPS

These knives (above)

range in price from

$185 to $1,850. Some

are handmade,

others produced

on a larger scale.

To find out why

chefs love them and

where to buy them,

turn to page D6.

Cleared for

Takeoff

Our preview of

the fall 2020

runway trends

D2