The maker behind Aruufelt
About me
Saikal Zhunush
Architect and felt-maker
Hello, I'm Saikal. I grew up in Kyrgyzstan, where I spent every childhood summer in a yurt high in the mountains, surrounded by wool. In 2009 I came to Switzerland, and in 2017 I opened my own architecture studio in Lausanne. But wool stayed with me the whole way.
I trained as an architect, and yet no material has ever spoken to me the way felt does. I love its raw colour and its smell, and the quiet way loose wool becomes something solid under your hands. There are centuries of knowledge folded into a single felted piece, and I am still learning to read them.
In a yurt, it is the felt I love most of all: its raw colour, its smell, its texture.
With Aruufelt I bring that love home to Switzerland. Each pair of slippers is felted entirely by hand from natural, healthy fleece, with no factory, no glue and no stitching. They are made in a small family workshop beside Lake Issyk-Kul and finished here in Lausanne. Honest, warm, and meant to keep your feet happy for many winters.
Architect by day
My days belong to architecture. I build as gently as I can, with local materials and old techniques, and always together with the people who will live in the house. One of them, a historic home I restored in the Zuercher Oberland, was named Building of the Year 2021 by the readers of Swiss Architects, and I was later invited to speak about this way of working at the Swiss Architecture Museum.
Felt comes from the very same belief. An honest, natural material. A craft passed down over centuries and shaped slowly by hand. A slipper and a house have more in common than you might think: both should be warm, both should be honest, and both should outlast the person who made them.
I would love to share all of this with you. Come and felt a pair with your own hands at one of our workshops, or simply come by the shop and feel the wool for yourself.
With warmth, Saikal
Join a workshopShop the slippers