ABOUT

How do you breathe life into a 244 year old house hold name? reposition them as a challenger brand.

When you're up against Gillette, you have to break the rules. Fortunately, In the men's grooming category, there are a lot to choose from.

Take the last ad for a razor you saw.

It probably had an immaculately clean-shaven sports-star or actor in it. They probably spent a lot of time stroking their own face to show you how incredibly smooth their brand new, seventeen-bladed, vibrating razor leaves their perfectly chiselled jawline. Water probably splashed their face in slow motion whilst a voice you vaguely recognise told you how this new technology will give you the closest shave of your life.

Maybe the footballer/actor drove off into the sunset in a Ferrari with a supermodel at the end.

They don’t say it explicitly but you’re left with the feeling that if you just shaved your face a little closer then you too would have million-dollar hollywood contracts and an unfeasibly attractive girlfriend.

You’ve been seeing these ads your entire life. They’ve been the same for more than 50 years; Muhammad Ali and Frank Sinatra sold our Dad’s razors when they were our age.

We are not our dads.

Maybe we don’t want to be movie stars and football players. Maybe we don’t want 9-5 jobs that demand we wear suits.
Maybe we don’t want 2.4 kids, a nice house in Surrey and a dog. Maybe we don’t want Ferraris.

Maybe we don’t even want to be clean shaven.

Armed with this insight, I hit the books and learned everything there was to know about Wilkinson Sword.

In 1772, Wilkinson Sword started out making swords. They progressed to duelling pistols and guns, then on to motorcycles, cars, knives and razors. Pretty cool. You could stop there and create something awesome.

We didn't stop there.

At some point during this time, young men from all over Britain got the exploring bug. Before they went to the steaming jungles of India or the African Savannah on their journeys of self discovery and exploration, they would come to Wilkinson and kit themselves out with everything they could possibly need to survive in the wild. Their little store on Pall Mall was the place to go if you were going on an expedition during the Victorian Era. Their knives and guns and tools were world famous.

We realised that Wilkinson Sword has a long history of helping young men find themselves. They might not make swords and pistols any more, but we realised that the core of what they were about hadn't changed at all.

Sure, You can’t use their razors to hack your way through the unexplored jungles of South America. You definitely can’t shoot anyone with them and they won’t get you from London to Brighton, but they’ll still help you express yourself, in any way that you want. You don’t have to go halfway round the world for self-expression any more. The concrete jungle right on your doorstep has fewer tigers.

There isn’t a better way to express yourself than the way you look and act and be the person you want to be. We call this style.

Welcome to the Cross Swords style Society