Manuela_Menzi_Studio_Silk_Ribbon_Brown_Walnut.jpg
Manuela_Menzi_Studio_Silk_Ribbon_Brown_Walnut.jpg

SILK RIBBON · WALNUT SHELL · BROWN

CHF 20.00
Material:

PAY WITH TWINT

In the middle of a field stands an old walnut tree. No one remembers who planted it. Only that it was planted for people they would never meet.

There is an old saying that a tree spends three hundred years growing, three hundred years living, and three hundred years dying. Which of these the walnut is in, no one can say. It simply stands, and lets the seasons come to it.

In winter it stands alone, dark against the snow, its branches spread wide as if still holding up the summer. Hares cross the field in the blue light of early morning and leave their tracks around its roots.

In spring it is the last tree in the valley to wake. Everything else is already green when the walnut finally unfolds its leaves, slowly, as though it has all the time in the world. Perhaps it does.

By summer the grass stands tall, and the tree throws a wide, cool shadow. Farmers eat their bread in it at noon. Children lie on their backs beneath it, counting the green nuts hidden among the leaves.

In autumn the nuts begin to fall, one by one, mostly at night. By morning they lie scattered in the wet grass, and whoever comes first fills their pockets.

We gathered ours on those mornings, cracked them by the fire through the first long evenings, and kept the shells. Simmered slowly, they gave us a golden brown, the colour of the thin skin around each kernel, of the field itself after harvest.

PAY WITH TWINT

In the middle of a field stands an old walnut tree. No one remembers who planted it. Only that it was planted for people they would never meet.

There is an old saying that a tree spends three hundred years growing, three hundred years living, and three hundred years dying. Which of these the walnut is in, no one can say. It simply stands, and lets the seasons come to it.

In winter it stands alone, dark against the snow, its branches spread wide as if still holding up the summer. Hares cross the field in the blue light of early morning and leave their tracks around its roots.

In spring it is the last tree in the valley to wake. Everything else is already green when the walnut finally unfolds its leaves, slowly, as though it has all the time in the world. Perhaps it does.

By summer the grass stands tall, and the tree throws a wide, cool shadow. Farmers eat their bread in it at noon. Children lie on their backs beneath it, counting the green nuts hidden among the leaves.

In autumn the nuts begin to fall, one by one, mostly at night. By morning they lie scattered in the wet grass, and whoever comes first fills their pockets.

We gathered ours on those mornings, cracked them by the fire through the first long evenings, and kept the shells. Simmered slowly, they gave us a golden brown, the colour of the thin skin around each kernel, of the field itself after harvest.

DETAILS

FABRIC

100% Silk

COLOUR

Golden Brown

Naturally dyed with walnut shells.
Each pot gives a slightly different shade. Small marks and uneven patches are part of the process and make every ribbon one of a kind.

DYE

Around 3cm

WIDTH

LENGTH

Around 2.5m

EDGES

Hand torn, softly frayed

MADE IN

Switzerland

  • FREE WORLDWIDE SHIPPING ON ALL ORDERS

    Orders are usually shipped within 2–3 working days, and international shipping is available.

    Please note that customers may be subject to customs duties in their respective countries, which are their responsibility.

    You can also pay directly via TWINT.

    You’re also welcome to pick up your order directly from the studio in Meilen. Important: Please call or text ahead to arrange a pickup time. This ensures I’m at the studio and have your order prepared.

  • Hand wash only if needed, in cool water and lay flat to dry. Iron on a low silk setting through a cloth. Keep away from direct sunlight to preserve the colour over time. Trim loose threads rather than pulling them.

ABOUT THE SILK

  • Crepe Satin

    One side glows with a soft sheen, the other is matte with a fine, grainy texture. It falls fluidly and ties into a bow that sits soft and full.

  • Crinkle

    Light and airy, with a crinkled texture set into the fabric. It holds a little volume in every knot and never needs ironing.

  • Twill

    Woven with fine diagonal lines, the same weave used for silk scarves. It is smooth and slightly crisp, and holds its shape beautifully in a bow.

WRAPPING PAPER WRAPPING PAPER
WRAPPING PAPER "CRAZY FOR AN EMPIRE"
CHF 30.00

PAY WITH TWINT

The air within the tiny greenhouse smelled of damp, peaty compost. Along the bench sat trays of seedlings and a row of jars, seed saved from last year and labelled in her own hand. Through the glass ceiling she could see the sky darkening. Heavy clouds gathered above her garden, and soon enough streaks of water raced down the panes, warping the apple orchard outside into a blur of greens and golds. The first rain of the autumn, arriving as it always did, a week later than she expected.

For over a decade she had been getting her hands dirty in this small patch of earth, the only place she ever owned. Her apple trees had gone past her height years ago, and their branches were shifting now in the wind. Wild greens, lavender and geraniums grew alongside the crops she planted herself. Turnips, carrots and small Berner Rosen filled the baskets on her kitchen counters each year. Nothing here grew in rows. The lavender had seeded itself into the carrot bed and the geraniums had followed, and she had let both of them stay.

The work was mostly deciding what to leave. She picked the apples she wanted and left the low branches to the wasps. Seed heads stood through the winter because the birds came for them. The turnips were lifted, the beds were turned, and the foxgloves were allowed exactly as much ground as they could take.

She remembered how her next-door neighbour once called her land "sweet chaos." Perhaps it was a hint for her to try to control the unstoppable spread of foxgloves and willowherbs. Perhaps it was about her own presence; her untamed hair, the dried lumps of soil crusting onto her sleeves, her jacket studded with sharp brown seed pods. She could never truly tell.

The rain thinned. Light came back through the panes, and she reached for the door with the seed pods still on her sleeve.

PAIRS WELL WITH

WRAPPING PAPER WRAPPING PAPER
WRAPPING PAPER "A CROWN IN THE STORM"
CHF 30.00

PAY WITH TWINT

When Mausolus of Caria died in 350 BC, his wife Artemisia II did not simply mourn him. After his cremation, she mixed his ashes into her daily drinks, making herself into a living tomb, carrying him inside her as she carried on ruling. And rule she did, under enormous pressure. Cities and islands across her domain refused to accept a female successor and revolted. Artemisia wore a crown in the storm, drawing on strategic brilliance to suppress the uprisings and hold her power together until her own death two years later.

The widow's extraordinary grief and turbulent reign have inspired artists for centuries. At the heart of the wrapping paper collage "A Crown in the Storm" is Guido Reni's "Portrait of a Woman" (1638-1639), a Baroque masterpiece depicting Artemisia in a turban, cradling a Lapis Lazuli bowl containing her husband's remains. Her gaze tilts upward, torn between devotion and anguish, and it sets the emotional tone for the entire composition. Around her, further fragments of Baroque portraiture deepen the drama, while glimpses of Paul Sandby's "The River Severn at Shrewsbury" (1770) introduce a sense of turbulent, flowing time. Botanical elements, geometric shapes and layered textures complete the collage, echoing the tension between order and grief that defined Artemisia's reign.

Printed on premium paper designed to survive the unwrapping and be kept, "A Crown in the Storm" gives your gift two layers: what is inside, and the story wrapped around it.Because the way you wrap something says as much as what is inside.

WRAPPING PAPER WRAPPING PAPER
WRAPPING PAPER "THE QUEEN OF ALGORAB"
CHF 30.00

PAY WITH TWINT

Winter arrives quietly at the old observatory. Frost creeps up the copper dome. By midnight it has dulled to silver under a hard white moon. She has kept this place for forty years, since the gears still turned smoothly and the telescope was the newest thing on the hill. For this wrapping paper we climbed up to find her there, still tending the same instruments, still watching for whatever the sky might show her next. A shooting star. A comet. A shape she hasn't charted yet. We call it "The Queen of Algorab," after the one she found and never stopped looking for.

She told us the story slowly, pausing to check a dial, to wipe frost from a lens. Every night she climbs the narrow stair, log book under one arm, and cranks the dome open to a seam of sky. The hinges complain, as they always have. Cold air pours in, carrying pine resin from the slope below.

One night, decades ago, fog swallowed every star she knew. She waited it out, sleeves pulled over her hands. Then a single gap opened directly above her. Through it, a shape she had never charted: a bird stretching its wings across the dark, one point at its edge burning steadier than the rest. An old colleague, visiting for the meteor shower, named it for her. Algorab, the crow's wing, a white star some eighty seven light years off, marking the corner of a small quadrilateral sailors once steered by. Its name comes from the Arabic for crow, older than the observatory, older than the hill itself.

She cannot see it all year. It climbs into view only as the coldest nights start to loosen their grip, low near the horizon before dawn, higher each week as the season turns. So she watches for it here, in this narrow stretch of winter, the way you might watch for one particular person in a crowd you know will thin eventually.

By morning the dome closes over a sky gone pale grey. She locks the door, leaves the key under the same stone as always, and walks down the hill. Somewhere above her, fading now, Algorab is already waiting for next winter to bring it back.