Ethical, Sustainable Luxury from Tibetan Plateau. Stories from Norlha

2019

NATURAL SHADES

Herds of Yak are visible from miles away, black dots on green or yellow pasture. Up close, they appear mostly dark brown, with some lighter animals...

2019

AROUND NORLHA

The Norlha Atelier stands at the entrance of Ritoma village, after the basketball court and before the spread of winter houses and the sprawling mo...

2019

ICE ON THE PLATEAU

Glistening, cold, slippery, stark and pitiless, ice is an integral part of winter. Ice on the Plateau is never very far away; in late august, it tr...

2018

FOG

Clouds roll over the Plateau bringing rain and snow. In summer or early fall, when the air is humid, they often lie low creating a blanket of fog w...

2018

SNOW

Tibet is sometimes called The Land of Snows, though not all areas of the Plateau see regular snowfall. In Ritoma, winters are too cold for snow and...

2018

WIND

Noisy and boisterous, Wind on the Tibetan Plateau animates the multitude of prayer flags, transporting with it the luck-bringing wind horse through...

2018

ON THE MOVE

Today, people tend to forget how much we, homo sapiens, have always moved from one place to another. Migration, which happened ‘en masse’ for mille...

2018

HARVEST ON THE PLATEAU

Harvest in a nomadic area like Ritoma is a relatively recent phenomenon. In the old days, there were less animals in more plentiful pasture, gather...

2018

THE END OF SUMMER

The pasture remains a bright shade of parrot green, though the tips of long grass left to grow wild in the autumn pasture turn gold at the tips.

2018

MACHU LEARNING CURVE

When Dechen and her brother Genam set off to Amdo to buy yak wool in the summer of 2005, they had no idea what they were getting into, and neither ...

2018

WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY

There are no trees in Ritoma. At first I thought it was due to the altitude, though the monastery’s pine grove planted some thirty years ago and lo...

2018

FEATHER WATERFALL

Norlha is a hub of creation, a place our master weavers and designers play with the infinite possibilities offered by the talent of our craftsmen a...