It started with a story.
In an early conversation with Gillette, we heard an old piece of brand lore: that decommissioned U.S. submarines were once melted down and turned into razor blades.
Whether fact, folklore or something in between, it immediately felt like the beginning of something bigger.
That became CUTTING EDGE—a cinematic exploration of the submarine legend, built around history, mystery and the irresistible question: could this actually be true?
The concept follows that question wherever it leads—through naval history, military surplus, American steelmaking and the mythology that grows around iconic brands over time. The deeper the investigation goes, the more the story begins to blur the line between fact and legend.
The story begins with the rumor and then follows the trail backward. Where would a decommissioned submarine actually go? What happened to its steel? Who first connected that steel to Gillette—and why has the story survived for decades? From naval yards and scrapyards to steel mills, archives and the people who may still remember pieces of the story, CUTTING EDGE becomes a modern investigation into an old legend. And with every answer comes another question: if the story isn’t true, where did it come from? And if there’s even a chance that it is—could one of those razors still exist?
From there, we expanded the idea into LEGENDS OF SHAVING—a serialized format inspired by the stories, rumors and cultural mythology surrounding Gillette. Everest. Apollo. Hemingway. D-Day. The White House. Titanic. Each episode offers a new piece of history—or folklore—and another unexpected way into the brand.
The premise is simple: start with a great story and follow it. A mysterious razor connected to an Everest expedition. A shaving problem nobody anticipated in zero gravity. A Gillette discovered among the possessions of Hemingway. A razor that may have traveled from the beaches of Normandy across liberated Europe.
Some stories could begin with history, others with rumor, and others could be created from the fascinating intersections between Gillette and more than a century of culture. Each becomes its own short cinematic mystery—designed to entertain first, while allowing the brand to live naturally inside the story.
And because the format is serialized, the possibilities are nearly endless. Individual chapters can live on their own across social platforms while collectively building a larger world audiences can return to again and again.
LEGENDS OF SHAVING turns more than a century of Gillette history into an ongoing storytelling engine—where every razor might have a past, every rumor might contain a little truth, and every story begins with the same irresistible question: What if?
Then we pushed the thinking further.
The deeper we went into Gillette’s history, the more fascinating its founder became. King C. Gillette was far more than the man behind the razor. He was an inventor, entrepreneur and ambitious thinker whose ideas extended well beyond shaving—including plans for an enormous utopian city and a million-dollar offer to Theodore Roosevelt to become its president.
KING brings that remarkable history into the present day through the eyes of a young man with entrepreneurial ideas of his own. Ambitious but uncertain about taking the leap, he discovers the extraordinary—and sometimes almost unbelievable—story of King Gillette.
As he digs deeper, the past begins to inform the present. Gillette’s successes, failures, enormous ambitions and willingness to pursue ideas others might have considered impossible become a catalyst for the young man’s own journey.
Structured as a creator-driven documentary, KING follows a young entrepreneur as he discovers the remarkable story of King C. Gillette and begins connecting it to his own ambitions in real time. Shot with the immediacy and authenticity of contemporary YouTube creator storytelling, the format allows history to unfold through a modern point of view—making Gillette’s ideas, risks and failures feel relevant to a younger audience rather than simply historical.
When we last spoke, you asked about comparable work in the evolving brand entertainment space, and we shared several examples. As of this week, The Hollywood Reporter took a deeper look at the growing movement of major brands into entertainment. We thought you might find it interesting. LINK