The Wooden Handle: Tools and the Utility Fetish
I’ve got a thing about tools. Actually, that’s not quite right: I’ve got a thing about the thing about tools. From Formafantasma to Studio Toogood, it seems to be hammer time (sorry, I couldn’t resist) for designers and makers alike at the moment. Some elements of this trend seem to fit in with the outdated ‘Design Art’ label, like Studio Job’s cast bronze agricultural tools from 2007’s Farm project.
Studio Job, Farm project, 2007, photo Dezeen
Others, like WohnGeist’s tool box, created for the second edition of Wallpaper* Handmade project speaks to the renewed interest in handmade luxury, based now as historically on an over-abundance of labour and material preciousness. As the magazine’s website proclaims, it ‘took two craftsmen 15 days to complete. The box and handles are carved out of Swiss walnut wood, while the chisels are individually made from Swiss steel.’
Toolbox, Wohngeist, 2011, photo Wallpaper
I’m not alone in noticing this trend: what prompted this post was Justin McGuirk’s recent remarks on this combined predilection for process, tools and the handmade in The Guardian. Focusing his gaze on the current Design Parade 6 exhibition at Villa Noailles in France, McGuirk identifies two of the exhibiting designers as taken with tools. First up is Jean-Baptiste Fastrez, with his marvelously named Tomahawk hair dryers that combine anonymous, anodyne domestic appliances with bespoke handcrafted wooden handles.
Jean-Baptiste Fastrez, Tomahawk hair dryer, 2011
On the other, Brynjar Sigurðarson and his Tool-light from 2010. Like Fastrez, Sigurðarson focused on the tool handle; the element he described as the one near-constant component in all tools and the one that therefore makes any object tool-like.
Brynjar Sigurðarson and his Tool-light from 2010
What to make of this appetite for tools and handles? In part, the Icelandic designer’s project can be seen as fuelled by a utopian desire for a return to pre-commodified, anthropological forms (see Alison Clarke’s excellent edited volume Design Anthropology for more on the history of this). Tools represent the earliest form of manufacture, a pre-capitalist object driven by efficiency rather than the commodity’s enchantment. However, while these designers might be turning to tools to override the excesses of consumerism, they can also be seen to be unwittingly promoting a new outlet for consumer desire.
As Mcguirk argues, this interest tools is symptomatic of a ‘craft fetish’ amongst today’s consumers, attempting the resist the homogeneity of mass manufacture. In the examples featured here, this fascination can more precisely be thought of as a utility fetish. In the context of economic austerity and the imperative of ethical consumption, consumers today desire goods informed by simplicity - and don’t mind paying a high price for it. From the wallet-emptying lust induced by London’s Labour and Wait store to Comradette’s clothing, utility chic is once again in fashion. It is the myriad offers of high end tools that offer the most explicit illustrations of this; see Best Made Company’s luxurious axes as just one example (Intriguingly, Best Made was identified as exemplary of the ‘agency’ of the ‘rural design vernacular’ on Core 77 last year - but that’s a topic for another day. ).
Best Made Company, Shiver Me Timbers American felling axe
So tools it seems are, at least for now, the latest desirable design language. The question of their viability as an ‘authentic’ alternative in view of their increasing commodification is as yet unknown - which makes this blog post just one reflection on the current utility fetish, and just one aspect of how tools, like any other object and any other technology inform and are informed by contemporary concerns. With that in mind, I’ve got a feeling this won’t be my last word on hammers, handles and axes.
