Called C-LOCK, Esposito’s take on the conventional ball bearing pivot system guarantees the folder blade will not bend or yield to pressure regardless of how the knife is held. By this time he had more or less created a style that’s identifiably his, not to mention securing a patent for a locking mechanism. In folders I found that I could really explore my interest in combining intricate mechanism with aesthetic design,” Esposito bares in a post on his website (Following an appearance at the 2008 East Coast Custom Knife Show in the US - a gig that proved pivotal to his career because his bold, original designs drew international attention - Esposito in 2010 had evolved into a full-time knife-maker. “I started making fixed blades, but soon moved on to integral and then to folding knives. A few years soon after, Esposito had signed up to be a member of the Italian Knife Makers Guild. One could say this experience was his first cut his passion for knife-making simply grew stronger. At around this time he also attended his first knife show (which was held in Milan). After experimenting with making one, he also began subscribing to books and magazines catering to the subject. He relates he was practically raised in his grandfather’s workshop where he learned at an early age to “transfer ideas” into an actual object he made using his own hands.Īt 15 he started developing an interest in making knives. His presence in Les Ateliers is only apt.īorn near Turin in 1983, Esposito is a certified star among a small constellation of haute knife-makers. Or, more to the point, he makes cutting-edge sculptures that fuse high art and high engineering. Signor Esposito, however, is not a watchmaker. The space is truly an intersection for high art and high engineering.

Here, haute horlogerie is the order of the house as each of the admittedly few companies present explores the possibilities of how far horologic craftsmanship and innovation can be pushed.

The setting is Baselworld 2019, where Urwerk occupies a spot at the Les Ateliers - the trade fair area reserved for some of the best independent watchmakers on the planet. On this intermittently overcast and sunny mid afternoon, he is garbed not in work clothes but in a tailored light-color suit, and is sitting behind a table on a corner inside the booth of watchmaker Urwerk. On this particular March day Emmanuel Esposito is not in his workshop in Turin, Italy, hunched over some machine, basic tools in hand.

Calibre bend apt