Garden Basket 'Vide' brick red

Garden Basket 'Vide' is a handwoven basket crafted from natural willow with the bark left intact, designed for harvesting, gardening, and everyday tasks. Equally suited to carrying oversized bouquets of sweet peas, every tomato that ripened at once, and generous harvests from the ambitious kitchen garden.

The basket is woven using the traditional French à jour technique, an open-weave construction that makes it both lightweight and strong. Less common than traditional willow weaving, this technique is admired for its light, elegant appearance. The carefully braided rim, the continuous willow rod woven from the base and extending up along the sides of the basket, and the handwoven handle are all details that give the basket its distinctive character.

Each basket is handmade by the Italian basket maker Martina Nocentini, whose studio is located in the Tuscan countryside outside Florence. She works exclusively with natural materials and a small selection of hand tools, entirely without electric machinery, treating each material with great respect for its natural qualities.

Working with willow is as much about understanding the life of the plant as it is about weaving. The willow is harvested when the sap has fallen, seasoned for one year to stabilise the wood, and then soaked for up to two weeks to restore the flexibility of the rods. Only then can the weaving begin, a craft process that has remained largely unchanged for generations.

The basket's form is inspired by the traditional French strawberry baskets once used during harvest. The open-weave construction creates a light, elegant appearance while remaining durable enough for everyday use in the garden.

The name VIDEN is inspired by the willow genus (Salix), renowned for its remarkable diversity, natural hybrids, and ability to adapt to a wide range of environments. Inspired by this diversity, we bring together gardening, textiles, design, and craftsmanship, where different disciplines are woven together to create something new.