Maker: Fort Standard

Location: Brooklyn, New York

Wares: Bottle openers, trivets, vessels and more.

Fort Standard is an impressive contemporary industrial design studio that reinvents standard, utilitarian items as objects of beauty. Things that would normally clutter a kitchen — like trivets, bottle openers or candelabras — are transformed into sleek, functional centerpieces 

Fort Standard designers and owners Gregory Buntain and Ian Collings manufacture their own products which, they say, yields a better understanding of the materials they use. Thus in their responsible studio, no design decision is made in vain.

Cast in Brass directly from hand carved waxes, Fort Standard’s bottle openers are “satisfyingly functional tools” that “show evidence of their hand made origin with the character of filing marks and a raw unfinished feel.” When not being used for their true purpose, the bottle openers easily double as decorative paperweights and/or sharp accent pieces.