F Is For Frank
The tepid housing market's forced many to reconsider their business model -- homebuilders are taking carpentry jobs, while landscapers have taken to smoking the grass. Turning their attention from houses to you, F Is For Frank.
Co-founded by a Booker T.-grad/former Matthew Trent apprentice, FIFF's forte is custom home-decor metalwork, from distressed-steel fireplace screens, to cabinet pulls shaped like ghostly longhorns, even a hockey-stick chandelier; to augment their now-sagging bottom line, they've just branched out into sweet accessories, none costing more than the Benjamin it's so clearly all about. So far, the men's mainstay is pewter cufflinks, with existing designs including coiled snakes, fishscale-like reliefs, and "LEFT" and "RIGHT" for the fashionably clueless; custom work can cover anything from organizational crests to your own fingerprint -- so even if you've burned yours off to rob houses, you can still open your biometric door. Then there are the cast-'n'-polished alloy belt buckles, with hand-soldered hinges & hooks, and designs from the Brooklyn Bridge trestle, to a brushed number with an exotic-wood inlay -- so when someone asks "is that wood?", you can hilariously respond "not yet, but come a little closer".
Forthcoming F'd items include a series of golf-green ball markers and divot repair tools, because lord knows those landscapers can't be bothered to fix 'em.
