"These are our great grandmothers. They built a community by making do and mending."
With women as her muses, it is only fitting her business should support them, with a share of her profits going to Global Angels, a charity started by Molly Bedingfield (mother of pop singers Daniel and Natasha Bedingfield) to help survivors of sex trafficking.
"My jewellery comes from what people see as bits of old junk. When you find it, it's dusty and grimy. But you clean it up, and make it into something beautiful.
"Women who have been trafficked have the right to the same treatment."
Mrs van Manen first dabbled in jewellery-making living in London, joining a small crafters collective who sold upcycled furniture and clothing.
"We were the Skip Sisters. We'd go diving into skips looking for stuff to re-use."
While living in Dresden, Germany, she became a regular at flea markets. "They have everything, you can get Edwardian bloomers for 5.
"I was coming out with old circuit boards and curling tongs, and thinking 'how can I make these into jewellery?'"
She returned home and started developing her jewellery lines out of butter knives, silver spoons, old door knockers and coat hooks, sewing accoutrements, carved dice, coin purses and miniature toys.
Many of the pieces hail from the pre-unification communist era, with East German craftswomen serving as another source of inspiration.
Mrs van Manen set up her online shop two weeks ago and has already been approached to stock upmarket stores in Wellington.
She said setting up a business with no prior experience required her to challenge her self-talk.
"There is a wall to push through. We artists tend to think we're phonies about to be found out.
"But you can't wait for those thoughts to dissolve on their own - you just do it."
