PAY WITH TWINT
There is a particular quality to a Sicilian summer. The light is dense, almost heavy. It settles on things, on lemon groves and stone columns, on ceramic tiles and still water, and seems to make them more themselves.
For this wrapping paper, we wondered if we could capture such a summer. Its colours, its heat, the particular stillness of a Sicilian afternoon.
At the centre of it all sits the lemon. Not lemons in general, but a specific one. The Femminello Siracusano, a variety grown on this island almost all year round. Its skin is thick and fragrant. Its scent is sharper and cleaner than most, carrying something of the salt air it grows beside.
From the lemon groves, the eye moves to the towns. Sciacca. Caltagirone. In both, the tradition of tin-glazed ceramic runs deep, painted in the blues and yellows that seem to answer the landscape they come from. These tiles appear on walls, on floors, on staircases climbing from harbour to hilltop.
And then the columns. The Corinthian kind, carved with acanthus leaves, standing in fields where wild herbs grow between the stones. Ancient and unhurried. Sicily carries its history lightly, folded into the ordinary rhythms of the place.
We wanted to gather these things together. The lemon, the tile, the column. Not as decoration, but as a kind of memory of a particular afternoon, when the heat settled, and everything smelled of citrus, and the Mediterranean sat still and dark beyond the grove.
Lemons of Sicily is the perfect wrapping for a summer occasion. Hold it and you can almost feel the Sicilian sun on your skin, and catch, just faintly, the scent of lemons on the air.
There is a particular quality to a Sicilian summer. The light settles on lemon groves and ceramic tiles and water, and seems to make them more themselves. At the centre sits the Femminello Siracusano, a lemon grown on this island almost all year round, its skin thick and fragrant, its scent carrying something of the salt air it grows beside.
Manuela Menzi Studio prints on uncoated paper, where the ink sinks into the fibre rather than sitting on top of it. The colour is softer, more natural. The surface feels alive in your hands, not glossy, not plastic.
PAY WITH TWINT
There is a particular quality to a Sicilian summer. The light is dense, almost heavy. It settles on things, on lemon groves and stone columns, on ceramic tiles and still water, and seems to make them more themselves.
For this wrapping paper, we wondered if we could capture such a summer. Its colours, its heat, the particular stillness of a Sicilian afternoon.
At the centre of it all sits the lemon. Not lemons in general, but a specific one. The Femminello Siracusano, a variety grown on this island almost all year round. Its skin is thick and fragrant. Its scent is sharper and cleaner than most, carrying something of the salt air it grows beside.
From the lemon groves, the eye moves to the towns. Sciacca. Caltagirone. In both, the tradition of tin-glazed ceramic runs deep, painted in the blues and yellows that seem to answer the landscape they come from. These tiles appear on walls, on floors, on staircases climbing from harbour to hilltop.
And then the columns. The Corinthian kind, carved with acanthus leaves, standing in fields where wild herbs grow between the stones. Ancient and unhurried. Sicily carries its history lightly, folded into the ordinary rhythms of the place.
We wanted to gather these things together. The lemon, the tile, the column. Not as decoration, but as a kind of memory of a particular afternoon, when the heat settled, and everything smelled of citrus, and the Mediterranean sat still and dark beyond the grove.
Lemons of Sicily is the perfect wrapping for a summer occasion. Hold it and you can almost feel the Sicilian sun on your skin, and catch, just faintly, the scent of lemons on the air.
PAY WITH TWINT
Mr. Bergmann’s flower shop sits in the old town of Zurich, in a street that has seen several centuries pass without too much fuss. We don't know exactly how long he has been there. We like to think long enough that the city has simply grown around him.
Inside, it is darker than you expect. Light comes in from the street in long narrow strips, catching the dust and the pollen and the dried petals suspended in the air. Your eyes adjust slowly, and as they do, the shop reveals itself in layers.
The first thing you notice is the smell. Something green and earthy underneath, then something sweeter on top. Fresh dahlias, their heads heavy and elaborate, in deep burgundy and burnt orange. Then something drier, older. Lavender, perhaps, or chamomile. The kind of smell that makes you think of remedy.
Which makes sense. For most of human history, a shop like this would have been a pharmacy. The flowers and plants that now sit in vases were once kept in labelled jars, weighed out carefully, prescribed. Calendula for skin. Chamomile for sleep. Hydrangea root for the kidneys. The line between a flower shop and an apothecary was, for a very long time, not a line at all.
Mr. Bergmann seems to know this, even if he has never said so. His shelves hold more than flowers. Wide-mouthed ceramic ones in earthy greens, tall glass ones with dried grasses spilling over the edges, small terracotta pots with single stems.Leatherbound books stacked on the floor beside them, their spines unreadable. Used candles burnt down to their last centimetre. Dried fruits. A sculpture or two, origin unknown.
We wonder what he thinks about when he arranges things. Whether he considers the dried and the fresh, the living and the preserved, the ancient and the newly cut, as different things at all.
Mr. Bergmann's flower shop sits in the old town of Zurich, darker inside than you expect. Dahlias in deep burgundy and burnt orange, dried chamomile and fresh stems, leatherbound books stacked on the floor. A place that has always known, without saying so, that flowers and remedies are the same thing.
Working only with original artwork and carefully chosen paper, Manuela Menzi Studio composes and prints a new collage design for every season and story.
PAY WITH TWINT
Mr. Bergmann’s flower shop sits in the old town of Zurich, in a street that has seen several centuries pass without too much fuss. We don't know exactly how long he has been there. We like to think long enough that the city has simply grown around him.
Inside, it is darker than you expect. Light comes in from the street in long narrow strips, catching the dust and the pollen and the dried petals suspended in the air. Your eyes adjust slowly, and as they do, the shop reveals itself in layers.
The first thing you notice is the smell. Something green and earthy underneath, then something sweeter on top. Fresh dahlias, their heads heavy and elaborate, in deep burgundy and burnt orange. Then something drier, older. Lavender, perhaps, or chamomile. The kind of smell that makes you think of remedy.
Which makes sense. For most of human history, a shop like this would have been a pharmacy. The flowers and plants that now sit in vases were once kept in labelled jars, weighed out carefully, prescribed. Calendula for skin. Chamomile for sleep. Hydrangea root for the kidneys. The line between a flower shop and an apothecary was, for a very long time, not a line at all.
Mr. Bergmann seems to know this, even if he has never said so. His shelves hold more than flowers. Wide-mouthed ceramic ones in earthy greens, tall glass ones with dried grasses spilling over the edges, small terracotta pots with single stems.Leatherbound books stacked on the floor beside them, their spines unreadable. Used candles burnt down to their last centimetre. Dried fruits. A sculpture or two, origin unknown.
We wonder what he thinks about when he arranges things. Whether he considers the dried and the fresh, the living and the preserved, the ancient and the newly cut, as different things at all.