Words by: Jared Paul Stern

A six hundred dollar set of Teflon-coated grooming tools made by hand in Solingen, German by expert tool makers

housed in a bespoke red-lined leather case. Without a doubt what 007 would pack on any adventure – items that, should the occasion arise, could easily be used to dispatch a SMERSH assassin, but barring that will always let a gent look his finest. The makers of these superb objects are called Czech & Speake, with headquarters in London’s Jermyn Street, known for its bespoke haberdashers and therefore the most gentlemanly thoroughfare in The Big Smoke.

But far from being a hundred-year-old firm the company was in fact founded in 1978 by a designer named Frank Sawkins who combines a love of an earlier, more elegant era with a desire to create the very best in gent’s grooming essentials. He began by designing bath fittings aimed at evoking “a modern Englishness conveying a sense of history, elegance and craft,” and has more recently come full circle to offer grooming accessories and products that are throughly in the DQ mode. All of Czech & Speake’s products aim to be the finest of their kind, and Q Branch could scarcely come up with anything more elegantly efficacious.