Carpenter and ski instructor on winter time, Didier Simond, 44, is a cutler artisan and the creator of the biggest knife in the world. His dream was to produce knives for himself and for people who appreciate good quality knives.
His passion for knives led him to create in the spring of 2007 an absolutely different knife, unique in its shape and name, Le Chamoniard. Inspired by the Mont Blanc massif, the handle of Le Chamoniard was created from a local wood, the pine tree « pine cembro », specific to the Valley. To obtain this wood he had to climb over 3000m altitude, beyond the Mer de Glace.
All knives are assembled by hand in his workshop requiring a minimum of 2 hours for each piece.This process involves a complex work and painstaking attention to details.
Once the knife is assembled and shaped, the craftsman has only to imprint the first ascent by Balmat and Paccard on August 7th, 1786. The handle engraving and the Mont Blanc shape add a touch of local colour to his knives. In this way, people who buy one of his knives acquire the same time a part of Chamonix's history.
Didier Simond's creativity does not stop only at full-size knives. On June 25, 2008 he manufactured the biggest knife in the world. And that's not all! On June 26, he decided to mount the 35kg folding knife on the top of the Mont-Blanc summit. With the help of his friends he succeeded to lift this huge device of 2m10.
This year, the craftsman comes up with 2 new designs: Le 1865, a special knife dedicated to the 150 years of the Golden Age of Mountaineering and Le Rize, used by his grandfather in 1928 for cutting ice cubes.
