Hugh Allen is the first to admit he’s not a big fashion person. “I wear my same tennis club t-shirt everyday”, he tells Broadsheet. So an accessory collab was not something that ranked very high on his professional bucket list. But the chef has just collaborated with Aussie bag makers Crumpler on a cool and stylish knife bag.
Like many good product and business ideas, the bag came from Allen noticing a gap in the market. Allen, who is the executive chef at Melbourne fine dining institution Vue de Monde and is known for his appearances on Masterchef, was sick of knife bags getting cut up after a year or two of use. He and wanted to invest in one that wouldn’t get torn to shred and decided to walk into Crumpler’s store in Melbourne suburb Fitzroy to see if they could make him a knife bag. Instead, the team asked him if he wanted to collaborate on one.
Allen says the collab with the Melbourne-based company took about two years to come to life. They gathered and dissected every one of the Vue de Monde chefs’ knife bags to see what they liked and what needed to change, developed about 10 prototypes and have finally released the chef gear.
The bag holds up to nine knives, has slots for pens and business cards, and comes with a dedicated first-aid box and Crumpler branded band aids. It retails for $170 and is available in three colourways: spacesuit orange, black and a mix of navy and forest green. Pretty stylish chef gear form two of Melbourne’s finest.
The Crumpler knife bag, made in collaboration with Hugh Allen, is available to purchase here.
