I Smoke a Pipe. And Wrote a Little Thing About how Young People are Coming to the Hobby
Photo via Walters Photography
Unlike napkins, diamonds, and golfing—traditions that Millennials have supposedly “killed”—pipe smoking is very much alive. In 2014, ABC News postulated that younger smokers and collectors were bringing pipe smoking, a hobby reminiscent of great-uncles and blazered villains of ’80s teen comedies, back into fashion. Nearly five years later, it’s largely agreed that pipe smoking’s youthquake hasn’t saved the industry or the hobby, either, but it has changed how pipe smoking appears in our minds: It’s unlikely that the image of an American smoking a pipe will be only associated with the dark-wooded dens of men in retirement ever again.
A thing I wrote for Collector's Weekly magazine.