The Gift of Summer Fits in Your Pocket

Summer in the West is a hands-on season: Long-table dinners under string lights. Garage projects that spill out into the driveway and somehow end with neighbors holding cold beers. Spontaneous detours up the coast that turn into three-day weekends with a duffel, a cooler, and not much of a plan. The best gifts of the season aren’t the ones that sit pretty on a shelf. They’re the ones that ride along, ready for whatever the next golden hour delivers.

That’s why the gift of the summer is multi-tool from Leatherman, the Portland-based tool company that’s been quietly outfitting West Coast lives since 1983 and backs every tool with a 25-year warranty. And here’s the thing: You don’t have to think of yourself as a “tool person” to love these tools. Nothing requires a manual, and the problems they solve are the everyday ones that would otherwise send you digging through a junk drawer or running to the hardware store. (Trust us: Every editor at Sunset packs a Leatherman for photo shoots.) This year, three tough yet stylish tools make a strong case for the gift of the season: one for the mom who hosts, one for the dad who fixes, and one for the new graduate who’s already halfway out the door.

For the Hostess Who Makes It Look Easy: Skeletool® CX

Kristin Guy

She’s the friend who pulls off Friday-night dinner like it’s nothing: heirloom tomatoes from the market, a chilled bottle of orange wine, beeswax candles flickering on the patio table by sundown. The Skeletool CX is her quiet sous-chef. At just five ounces, with a slim carbon-fiber-accented handle that slips into a back pocket or the side of a market tote, it’s a 7-in-1 with only the essentials and nothing extra: a premium 154CM stainless steel blade—DLC-coated, edge-holding, and sharp enough to break down a melon or shave curls of Parm—plus needle-nose pliers, regular pliers, and wire cutters for all the in-the-moment saves (a clipped flower stem, a stubborn wine cage, a loose hinge on the garden gate just as guests pull up). The bit driver lives discreetly inside the handle with both a Phillips and a flathead bit tucked in for safekeeping, and the carabiner clip on the end doubles as a bottle opener that’s already pulled the cap off the next round of rosé. Every tool opens with one hand. The blade locks. The whole thing weighs less than a stick of butter. Slice, snip, sip. She’s always one step ahead.

For the DIY Dad Who Can Fix Just About Anything: ARC®

Courtesy of Leatherman

Every weekend brings a new list. Restain the deck, rehang the gate, swap out the porch sconce before guests arrive Saturday, finally tame the wild rosemary that’s overtaken the herb bed. The ARC is built for the dad who’d rather handle it himself than wait two weeks for the contractor to call back. It’s Leatherman’s most advanced multi-tool yet, with 20 functions packed into a 4.25-inch frame: needle-nose and regular pliers, premium replaceable wire and hard-wire cutters, spring-action scissors, a wood/metal file and a separate diamond-coated file for finer work, a saw, an awl, a pry tool, a can opener, a wire stripper, an electrical crimper, both a large and small bit driver for the deepest reaches of any cabinet hinge, and a knife blade forged from CPM MagnaCut, the first time the next-generation steel has shown up in a multi-tool. It holds an edge through cardboard, copper wire, garden twine, and steak alike, and resists rust through every mossy Pacific Northwest morning. Thanks to FREE® technology, every feature opens smoothly with one hand and locks securely in place. No fumbling, no wrestling. Available in polished stainless or the striking bronze Cerakote® finish of the ARC Talos edition, it’s as good-looking on the workbench as it is in the hand. Precision meets durability. Power, in the palm of your hand. No toolbox required.

For the New Grad Chasing the Next Adventure: Signal®

Courtesy of Leatherman

They’ve got the duffel already in the trunk and a vague plan that involves Joshua Tree this weekend, Big Sur the next, and somebody’s cousin’s cabin in the Cascades after that. Dinner is freshly caught trout cooked over coals, skillet cornbread that may or may not catch fire, and stories that get better with every retelling under a sky full of stars. The Signal is their pocket-sized basecamp: 19 outdoor-ready tools tucked into a 4.5-inch, 7.5-ounce frame finished in moody Cerakote colors (Coyote Tan, Nocturnal, Aqua, Tundrascape) that look as good clipped to a backpack strap as they do on a campsite picnic table. Inside: a built-in ferro rod for sparking a fire when the matches inevitably get damp, a hammer surface for driving tent stakes into stubborn ground, an emergency whistle for the just-in-cases, a diamond-coated sharpener that keeps the blade fish-ready trip after trip, plus a saw, awl, can and bottle openers, integrated 1/4″ and 3/16″ box wrenches, a bit driver, a carabiner, and a 420HC combo blade that handles everything from dinner prep to kindling. Pack light. Do more. Adventure approved.

Make It Theirs

Browse the Custom Shop to mix-and-match handle colors and finishes, add free laser engraving with initials, a coordinate, a graduation date, or an inside joke, and round it out with accessories like a leather sheath, a bit kit, or a swapped-out pocket clip to match the recipient’s style. Three tools. Endless summer uses. Whatever—and whoever—you’re celebrating this year, there’s a Leatherman that fits the moment, the person, and the pocket.