OJAI, Calif. — Does your kitchen need some color?

According to the co-owner of Messermeister Knives, Kirsten Dressler Wilson, one no longer has to choose — at least not the color of his or her knife handle. 

“You can have a blue handle and then the next month if you want a red handle you can switch it to a red handle. That’s the beauty about this collection — you don’t have to buy a whole new knife, you just buy a handle,” said Dressler Wilson.

Dressler Wilson runs the women-owned business with her sister Chelcea. Their vision is to innovate what knives can look like in a primarily male-driven industry.

“This is what they call a laser-cut knife in our collection. For the last 25 years, it had a black handle, so we decided to reinvent that knife because we got bored of it,” said Dressler Wilson.

Messermeister means knife master in German and was founded by their father in 1981. When he passed away in 2002, the sisters joined their mom Debra to carry on his legacy, but now, the sisters who are both moms and have made the business their own.

As Co-owner Chelcea Dressler-Crowley said, they create through their lens.

“We are just makers of high-quality things that we would like in our kitchen and we want to be different,” said Dressler-Crowley.

They also created a sanitizing ultraviolet light to their knife block. It was an idea borne from the pandemic.

They also carry an adventure chef set for those who love the outdoors. They also have the first-ever folding steak knife on the market, which honestly, is a conversation starter.

“If it doesn’t have a cool story to tell, we’re not going to make it. We want to design cool products that have a story, that have a purpose behind it," said Dressler Wilson.

In addition to the cool-factor, the creations by the sisters are eco-friendly and based on what they would like to use. 

According to both of them, while it may be nice to buy a knife for dad for Father’s Day, it is really mom who deserves a quality and stylish knife.

“I think what our product speaks is that beauty and that elegance that Mom represents in so many ways,” said Dressler-Crowley.

So while they balance being moms and business-owners, their mission is to create a better kitchen experience — one that would make their dad proud.

“I think if you have bad knives, you don’t really know you have bad knives until you use a good knife. Then you use a good knife and you are like, ‘what have I been doing for my whole life?" said Dressler Wilson.

The sisters are changing the game to give them the edge in the knife industry.