Todd Brugman dd Grade Smooth Dublin Sitter Estate Briar Pipe, Unsmoked

Description

Todd Brugman is an American artisan and the in-house pipe maker for Boston’s L.J. Peretti tobacconist. While Brugman shapes all of his pipes by hand, an approach much in keeping with the Danish tradition of allowing the grain itself to suggest what style of pipe it should be, Brugman is also heavily influenced by the French-American industrial designer Raymond Loewy. While Loewy didn’t design pipes, his impact on industrial design, especially in America, cannot be overstated. Loewy lent designs to just about everyone one can think of, from Lucky Strike cartons to Coldspot refrigerators, Greyhound bus interiors, and Studebaker models.

Having revisited the various works of Raymond Loewy, I can certainly appreciate the influence of his aesthetic philosophy on Boston’s Todd Brugman. Loewy’s designs often had a palpable sense of speed, and not just because he helped create a great range of vehicles. Looking at the side profiles of the Studebakers and Pennsylvania railway cars Loewy was responsible for, one can almost see the form of the vehicle “rushing” or “leaping” forward, even when stood still. This Dublin sitter, much like the prince listed recently, has a similarly “leaping” figure from its button to its canted bowl, with the latter having its own “vector” thanks to its cant and marvelously paired straight grain (leaving no wonder as to why the pipe attained Brugman’s highest grade, the “dd”). But there is another designer of sorts that this pipe is reminiscent of, one a lot closer to home as far as our own industry is concerned: Baldo Baldi. The breadth of the bowl and the way that it’s rounded out further than is typical for such a shape is very “Baldi,” as is Brugman’s proclivity for long shanks and short stems. It all makes for a very nice pipe, one with a great mixture of worlds contained within it.

This pipe is completely unsmoked.

 

Details:

Length: 6″ / 152.4mm

Bowl Width: 0.91 / 23.11mm

Bowl Depth: 1.84″ / 46.73mm

Weight: 2.3oz / 66g