Pocket tools. Hand tools. Swiss tools. Multi-pliers. et multiple cetera — but it’s not a mere set of imple-
Most tools are designed to fulfill one explicit function, ments. It’s a state of mind.
so they have one name and a single efficient form. Once a Leatherman is in the user’s hand, it’s very
But multitools are different: they’re compact, hingey, likely that the so-called “screwdriver” will become a
clumsy, ungainly, folding, pronged, clickety-clackety. chisel, or the stainless-steel butt of the thing will be
A multitool haunts the body, in a pocket or purse.
Its game plan is to stay with you around the clock, “Multitools are for people
ready for anything. Professionals’ tools exist for
people who need to get a job done. Multitools are for who can’t define their
people who can’t define their jobs, and who never
stop tinkering. jobs, and who never stop
The original Swiss Army knife of 1891 was built to do four clear things in one package: it opened military tinkering.”
canned food, it punched holes in military horse
harnesses, it unscrewed Swiss rifles, and it could cut. used as an impromptu hammer. The specific design of
However, anyone who can do four things with one the sub-tools within a multitool is well-nigh irrelevant.
gizmo naturally wants it to do eight things, or ten, or Multitools aren’t built to solve specific problems;
a thousand. Outside the landlocked Swiss Army, the instead, they provoke ingenuity. It’s hard to give up
world market for multitools turned out to be huge, and despair with a Leatherman, because the thing
comprehensive, and ever-expanding. Today, there are offers such a cornucopia of possible actions. Given
hundreds of models of Swiss Army knives. They shuf- time and determination, you could escape jail with
fle their features like a Vegas dealer shuffles cards. one. Or perform brain surgery. Or construct an entire
Multitools belong, by nature, to ingenious people in castaway geek desert-island utopia, like in Jules
conditions of mayhem, where nothing is working right Verne’s Mysterious Island.
but everything needs doing right away. That means Multitools are a postmodern technology. They offer
soldiers (of course), but also emergency workers, chances to reframe the issue, to think outside the box,
rescue personnel, explorers, extreme sports freaks, to redefine contexts, and to do a rapid, crappy job at
astronauts, survivalists — anybody forced to make do. patching up a makeshift hack. It’s not the ultimate
When everybody’s forced to make do, then multitools truth, but it might last long enough for the user to
appear all over the place. cash in quick and run away!
The Leatherman pocket tool was invented by an Multitools lack purpose. They’re all about repurpos-American engineer wandering through Europe and ing other stuff that has lost or misplaced its purpose, Iran. Tim Leatherman, harassed by broken rental or that has the wrong purpose at some critical time, cars and malodorous foreign plumbing, created a or that has succumbed to a general disaster where all multipronged super-interface for a world of SNAFU. human purpose has been crushed. The original multi-A Leatherman offers a single handful that is pliers, a tools were super tough; they were created for would-wire cutter, knives, a saw, a file, scissors, screwdrivers, be omni-competent guys who were really up against
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