“In a way, Best Made was actually a product of the recession,” says Buchanan-Smith. “I had to close my office and lay off my staff. I was living in New Jersey and I had this garage I’d always wanted to use as a workshop.” The first few prototypes were painted there; now the axes are forged in Maine by America’s oldest axe-maker then hand-painted here, in Buchanan-Smith’s Tribeca studio.