Traditional style flash drawing of a straight razor with a wood grain handle, a brass FTW plate and red accents on a tan background.

Straight razor flash design

Traditional · Colour · Flash

A straight razor is drawn open at an angle, with a dark wood grain handle, two rivets and a yellow plate carrying the letters FTW. Bold black outlines define the shapes, with grey shading on the blade and a soft brown wash behind. Small red flourishes sit at the joints and edges, and dark speckles are scattered across the tan background.

Traditional Lettering

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dennis Hale unwrapped the razor on the marble ledge of his shop on Hessle Road, folding back the flannel one corner at a time, as if it might bolt. Priya had the kettle going and a towel over her arm, and he told her to stop hovering and come and look properly.

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The handle was dark wood gone almost black at the edges, worn smooth where a thumb had rested for decades. Two rivets held it together, and the yellow plate between them had been painted by hand, the letters F T W standing out in black. "Frank Tolley's," Dennis said. "My uncle. He cut hair in this same chair before the war, and he never once told a customer what the letters meant. Men used to guess all sorts over the tops of their newspapers."

He put the strop in her hands, cracked and soft, and showed her the angle, spine low, edge trailing like a sentence nobody wants to finish. She dragged it along the leather twice and her thumb met the steel. A bead of red sat on the wood grain, and Dennis only nodded, as though it was the first thing a razor had ever asked of anyone.

"So what does it stand for?" she asked, while he dabbed the cut with a cloth. He took the razor back, folded it shut with a click she felt in her teeth, and held it up to the window. "Ask me again when you can shave a man without him noticing," he said. The plate caught the grey December light, and somewhere behind them the kettle began to sing.