DEEJO IS THE STORY OF AN OBJECT ANYTHING BUT ACCESSORY, WHICH CARRIES ON ITS BLADE THE SOUL OF ITS OWNER.

Deejo: You often repeat that every Deejo has a soul. How can an object have a soul?

Luc Foin: In the beginning, there is my adoration for objects full of meaning. Not those things we accumulate as part of a compulsive collection, but objects that are witnesses to the passage of time, those objects that last and age with us (because we repair them rather than throw them away), which acquire a patina over time and become charged with emotion and to which, of course, we become attached. To my customers I often cite the example of this old ‘Remington’ that sits in my office. Where my partner Stéphane Lebeau (who designed our knives) sees only a cumbersome dust magnet, I imagine the factory that produced it in the United States at the beginning of the 20th century, the merchant who advertised it to the customers from his sales counter, the customer who selected it with meticulous care, anxious to make the ‘right choice’, and finally the hundreds (thousands?) of hours spent tapping away on it, to finish that article by an urgent deadline within the hour or the serenity of a work written carefully over time. Was the typist a stenographer at a business firm in Chicago, a reporter for the New York Times or a writer in Ohio? I’m speaking about my Remington, but I could just as well be telling you about my Leica M6, purchased from my first pay check, or about this watch acquired the day my daughter was born... Because yes, objects are not as insignificant as they might appear at first glance and can recount (beautiful) stories.

D: How does a ‘tattooed’ Deejo knife become charged with emotion?

LF: In letting our customers tattoo their Deejo, we are inviting them to discover the happiness of becoming attached to an object that is inevitably personal. This is even more so if it is given to you as gift. Depending on the one who offers it, in what context, on such and such a date, with a tattoo chosen to please you, a Deejo becomes much more than a simple knife. It is an object that belongs to YOU

D: We talk tattoos a lot at Deejo…

LF: Deejo did, in effect, invent ‘the tattoo’ on a knife blade. It is a completely new approach in cutlery which, by means of a motif covering the blade, the handle, or both at the same time, lets us display / claim / reclaim (delete where appropriate) our belonging to a tribe or our attachment to a style. What comes immediately to mind are bikers, fishermen, hunters, mountaineers or watch lovers who find themselves in this or that tattoo in line with their passion. But there are also those who wish simply to display their good taste or a current trend of the moment, letting themselves be seduced by a more classic or, in contrast, a modern motif. 

D: Some say a knife is not a gift to offer because it cuts the bonds of friendship...

LF: A knife cuts through everything except friendship! And offering the gift of a Deejo is not just offering a knife. It offers much more. Moreover, intention measures the power and merit of the gift reflected in the configuration and the tattoo chosen. There are those who take little risk and who choose a classic, universal or simply elegant tattoo, and the more audacious, the more intimate, who dare a tattoo in perfect harmony with the personality of its (happy) owner.

D: Any final thoughts?

LF: To offer a Deejo is to put yourself in the place of another. In fact, it is the opposite of the impersonal gift card, charged with money in the absence of emotion. Never has the adage ‘It’s the intention that counts’ been better illustrated than by Deejo.