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2025 TOPS Employee Design Challenge is a Wharnie Neck Knife

February 10, 2025

The Ivie is the 2025 addition to TOPS Employee Design Challenge series. This annual competition gives any TOPS employee the chance to become a knife designer, and this year’s model  is a fetching EDC fixie designed by a knife enthusiast.

Surely, not everyone who works in the knife industry is a knife fan – but, we’d argue that it attracts a fair number of enthusiasts into the fold. Such is the case with Ivie designer Cody Ivie, who leveraged his own love of knives to create something with all the hallmarks of an enthusiast-friendly piece – starting from the top of the knife with the wharncliffe blade shape – a profile absolutely beloved by the knife cognoscenti.

The Ivie is a tiny little guy

On the Ivie, it measures 2.5 inches long, and so we can consider the Ivie a compact EDC slicer/snipper, something that can be carried in the pocket, but that has been designed to be that most seldom seen class of fixed blade, the neck knife. The Ivie – both blade and the full tang beneath the scales – is made from 1095 carbon steel, sporting a hefty gray Cerakote to ward away rust.

The Ivie’s handle continues with the compact utility concept. A key element in neck knife design is minimizing the size of the handle; obviously, an elongated grip is not going to make for a friendly neck carry. Here, Ivie (the designer, not the knife) kept this precept in mind and gave the Ivie (knife, not designer) a two-finger handle, with just enough space to provide control, but not so much that it oversteps the accepted bounds of neck knife design.

At 3.9 oz. with the included Kydex sheath, the Ivie should be an unobtrusive passenger, either around the neck or in the pocket.

The Ivie is available now.

Knife in Featured Image: TOPS Knives Ivie

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