SPRING SUMMER 2025
Norlha’s Spring Summer 2025 collection looks to the timeless, rich and abundant qualities of the thangka.
Than meaning flat, and Ka painting, Thangka are portable sacred objects. Intricately painted with iconography, inscriptions and emblems, thangkas are rolled and unrolled, hung beneath layers of gauze and silk veil to protect their image.
The Thangka is composed of a textile mantle and hand-stitched layers of textiles including a door of fabric, through which the viewer symbolically enters the Thangka’s image. In Tibetan culture, the Thangka requires the utmost respect and care, while acting as a nomadic and vibrant vessel of ritual to bring prosperity and ward off bad spirits.
Hung in homes, temples and monasteries, the many lives of the Thangka are found in its creases and folds, the rhythms of ceremony and tradition. Nomadic monks too carry the Thangka from village to village for their teachings.
Over time, the well-travelled Thangka, exposed to nature’s elements or hung above shrines of butter lamps and burning incense, reveals the indelible, raw beauty from its use: the worn paint layers, tears and soot-lined edges marked upon its surface.
Norlha’s Spring Summer 2025 collection references the tactility and symbolism of the Thangka, with a focus on subtle pleats, thoughtful layering and delicate fringing. The textured, raw edges of the Chic Mud Wall Scarf and Feather Lichen Scarf are reminiscent of the silk ribbons and cord that hold the Thangka’s veil, and the Feather Raw Scarf and Chic Slit Scarf of the gentle folds and wear that adorn the Thangka’s textiles.
For the warmer months, woven yak wool and silk weave blends offer strength and soft warmth to both the season’s scarves and ready-to-wear pieces, with the hand-stitched panels and strips of the Feather Raw Skirt and Feather Skirt reflecting the layers of textiles that protect the Thangka’s inscriptions within.
The colours for Spring Summer 2025 - golden straw and sandstone, burnt red and ink black, forest green and bright, torrent blue - feel lifted from the Thangka’s central image.
The more muted palette of natural yak greys, white and browns speak to the Thangka’s faded facade, with hints of gold, a colour that when etched onto the Thangka, is believed to bring good karma during worship.
Made by hand on the Tibetan Plateau with intricate skill, innovative techniques and traditional knowledge, these timeless pieces are crafted to last a lifetime, and be passed down for many more to come.
