10 Things I Can’t Live Without (Including a $19 Legendary Knife)

• Men’s Lifestyle
• Men’s Street Style

Let Me Tell You About This Legendary Knife Real Quick

I own the only knife to have an entire museum dedicated to it, invented in 1890 and now selling over 15 million pieces annually.

Pablo Picasso is said to have used an Opinel knife as a sculpting tool, and this knife was recognized by the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1985 as one of the best-designed items in history, alongside the Porsche 911 and the Rolex watch.

More on my Rolex later. This world-famous icon comes in at a whopping $19 in the US.

It’s also remained largely unchanged for over a century, but that doesn’t mean the modern-day designers at Opinel haven’t been putting their little fingies in the knife and innovating it, and they have some very cool ideas.

So today, we’re looking at ten ish of my favorite toys, things I can’t live without, and what have you. Hey, everyone! It’s Michael. I think it’s going to be a good article because let me tell you something – I got a lot of cool toys.

The first favorite thing in this article is a knife. It’s called The Carter; it’s from the James brand. To be honest, I don’t really know that much about knives yet. I’m starting to get into them now, so I don’t know a lot about steel yet. I don’t know a lot about handles and locks and all that, but I do like this knife. It gets the job done, and it’s aging very cool – some of the black is coming off of the steel, which I really like.

I got this for free from Huckberry. Most of the things on the list today aren’t free, and they’re not affiliate links or anything – they’re just things that I like. I keep it with me every day, and a lot of knives I have don’t have a pocket clip, which makes it way more convenient.

Also, I really want the Hell Gap from the James Brand. I think that knife looks so sick. I have no need for a giant knife to put on my belt like that, but man, oh man, I’d love to cut apples or something with it, you know?

I tried to journal and write things down every day, and I never kept up with it, but three years ago, I got the Midori Five Year Journal for my girlfriend, Taylor, for her birthday, and it’s amazing. And I got it for Taylor because Taylor was the only person I knew would do it every day no matter what, and she did.

What’s amazing is that when you look at this book, one page represents five years, so the page is broken up into five different sections; for example, one page is January 1st, 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026, and 2027.

You go through the book five times, and now Taylor’s on the third year, and what’s happening is she’s like, “Oh, this year on January 1st, we were getting ice cream in Concord, Massachusetts, then the next year you were helping me move into New York, then the next year we were both crying outside of my apartment because I was moving to Denmark.” It’s amazing – you definitely have huge things happening in five years.

So my old wallet, or the wallet that I was using as of like three weeks ago, was from a brand called Simply Carbon Fiber, and I like that wallet.

I switched to that wallet because my credit cards would never fall out, but the downside was my credit cards got destroyed with that wallet.

So anyways, Bronson of Bronson Leatherworks watches the Iron Snail, and he sent me a handmade wallet that he makes, so I switched over to that, and it’s been great. I’m also looking at the Ship John Foley wallet – I really like that one because it has a closure so I can hide my cards, and then it has a quick, fast-access section in case I have to put cash in there on a getaway or something like that.

And having multiple wallets and rotating through them is not a problem for me – I have plenty of Pokemon cards that I could just fill hundreds of wallets in! I have a ton of Pokemon cards from when I was a kid. I really like small square things you could fit in your hand – I don’t know why.

I’m really not kidding when I say I like little, small rectangular things that fit in my hands. So I really like soap, and the soap that I’ve been on lately is Sterling Soap, made in Arkansas. It is all-natural and comes in like 50,000 different smells, so I always get a different smell.

It comes in seasonal collections, which is very cool. Don’t worry; it’s a very masculine soap. There is no messing around with soap here! So, I definitely recommend you check them out. Very cool stuff.

Okay, so I can’t really talk about this next subject too much because I work for a watch YouTube channel, but the subject is watches. I wear my Rolex Explorer a bunch – I got it the day before I drove to Canada to get the Iron Snail (my brand, toot toot) Prologue jacket, and that was awesome, and then I jumped in the water with Brandon of Naked and Famous and broke it and then got it fixed.

I do have a watch collection, but I don’t know when I’ll talk about it. If I do, it’ll probably be on Theo and Harris’s YouTube channel. So tune in there, but again, I have no idea when that’ll happen.

Also, you probably know this already, but since I work in the world of watches, I have a lot of access to watches, so I have different watches on all the time. I really like digital watches, too, for some reason. I always find it really hard to buy one versus other fancier watches – like my G-Shock DW 5600s. I love it.

I got it my sophomore year in college, so I’ve had it for seven years, and I said in college, when the battery dies, I’m gonna get a solar Atomic DW 5600, but it hasn’t died yet, and I don’t know if it ever will.

I’m going on seven years, but Huckberry also just sent me the Iron Man Flix, which is a collaboration between Huckberry and Timex where Huckberry really reintroduced kind of an iconic watch from the 90s.

It wasn’t in the ’90s, but when I worked at the YMCA, there was this old man who swam laps every morning in the pool – he always wore a Timex Iron Man, and I always thought that was cool, so I have one now. And usually, if I do a workout in the morning or if I go for a walk or something like that, I like to not bring my phone or Apple watch and anything like that – I like to just not have any technology with me.

Still, it is fun to have a watch that has a little personality with its beeps and boops.

Okay, I won’t go super into technology because last time I checked, this isn’t MKBHD – this is my setup right now:
iPhone 13, 14-inch MacBook Pro M1 Max 64 gig RAM, and then I have my iPad M1, which I had in my last EDC article. It was way less important then than it is now because now that I’m designing clothes and logos and everything like that, I use the Apple Pencil and the iPad all the time.

Anyways, okay – cameras! This goes both ways: professional and for fun. A lot of you ask me what I shoot my videos on, and it is the Sony A7 S3 mixed with 99.9% of the time a Sigma 24-70 2.8 Art lens.

One of the things I’m actually really sentimental about is the lens because for the past almost three years, I have filmed everything on that lens seven days a week – if someone stole that lens I’d be really sad. I shoot film only for fun when I’m not working, but I also have a Leica M4 P, and a Pentax Spotmatic SP2.

The Spotmatic is actually an amazing camera – I got it for my sister many, many years ago. She never used it, so I stole it and never told her about it. I figured whenever I visit a factory that’s making something for the Snail I’ll take pictures on the Leica with the Flash and show them to you.

Boot Talk (Kind Of)

In my notes for this section, I just wrote “boots” – I don’t actually have a specific pair of boots to show you, so just picture a lot of different boots. Vibergs are on their way – Oxford 145s, and then I’ll probably get boots later, but it’s very exciting. I love boots and can’t live without boots!

Next up is my briefcase – my girlfriend Taylor says I always say the name horribly wrong. It is my Bleu de Chauffe bag, and I love it. This is the postman bag in size medium.

I’m friends with Bleu de Chauffe. They sent me this for free, but they never follow up or ask for a review or anything – they just say, “Pick what bag you want this year,” and then they mail it to me. I highly suggest you check them out, they’re super nice people. I don’t know if that matters – I always say when brands are nice, I don’t know if you care, but most brands that I talk to are very nice people, so it’s kind of nice to support nice people, you know?

So I don’t know. Either way, they’re incredibly nice people. This bag, not that it particularly matters, has never failed to get me a compliment. I get complimented on this bag every single time I have it out, and I have actually had three women compliment me on how nice it smells if it’s in a room near them!

I love that bag – it is stone-washed vegetable tan leather, so it’s very soft. It has a wool liner on the inside for your laptop, which is fantastic.

Also, a bag that I saw in Denmark that I chased a woman down for is the Bree Elch bag – that bag is crazy! I haven’t bought that bag yet, but it’s one of the most gorgeous bags I have ever seen.

And finally, the first knife I talked about is the last item because it’s not just the Opinel number eight – it’s the Opinel number eight picnic plus set or whatever it’s called. This makes the hood go crazy – people 100% of the time, every time, go ballistic when they see the little add-ons that you could do with this knife, and I think it’s brilliant!

I don’t think it was originally designed like this, but there’s a little slot when the knife is folded down that you could put other things into, and you make a picnic set out of it. So I travel for work a lot, but by travel, I mean I drive to New Jersey, and I eat my lunch in my car, so I always bring this with me to use as my fork, knife, and spoon, and I think you’ll never regret it in your entire life and there are very few things that you’ll never regret – one of them is also the five-year Midori Journal!

Watch This Review

Overview Of My Favorite Things

Okay Good Bye! 

This article was adapted from Michael Kristy’s video on The Iron Snail, with edits from FashionBeans, and was reviewed by Michael to ensure the integrity of his original content. Watch the full video here.

The Iron Snail is a men’s fashion vlog (and now article series!) starring a young man named Michael and featuring a snail no bigger than a quarter. The two are set on taking over the world of fashion by creating a clothing line to end all clothing lines. Until then, we’re here to tell you EVERYTHING you need to know about the best clothing out there, from the highest quality raw denim jeans to the warmest jackets to the sturdiest boots…the Iron Snail has got you covered.