Ethical, Sustainable Luxury from Tibetan Plateau. Stories from Norlha

Ritoma

An American on the Plateau

Willard Johnson is from Seattle, Washington. He studied at MIT and after graduating pursued his passion for basketball, playing on teams in Aus...

Ritoma

Compassion is the core of Buddhist practice. Developed through mind training, it is generated by considering all sentient beings as one’s mothe...

Ritoma

For Norlha employees, who lived as nomads, work at the atelier is a new chapter in their lives. Though sheltered from the snow, rain and snow, ...

Ritoma

Traditional nomad women have hard lives. The generation of women now in their sixties typically bore a dozen children, many having experienced ...

Home

As Norlha grew, the small, original buildings that had been built on a low budget around the interior of the south wall were replaced with bett...

Home

My parents loved beautiful tableware. I inherited dozens of tablecloths, tea and coffee cups, dishes which my father hand painted, silver platt...

Ritoma

The 15th rule in Norlha’s rule book clearly states, “No playing within the walls of the atelier.” Tibetan nomads love to play. In the winter i...

Ritoma

The market economy slowly crept onto the plateau in the '90s as markets began to explode in China. In the old days, goods were scarce and hard ...

Craft

After completing their training in Cambodia in January 2007, the Norlha team moved on to Nepal. In Cambodia they had learned silk weaving, in N...

Ritoma

In the spring of 2009, the initial building of the workshop had been completed for over a year, and it was time to embellish the surroundings. ...

Craft

In October 2006, the core Norlha team traveled to Siem Reap, Cambodia to train in weaving. Some on the team had never been further than Labrang...

Ritoma

The Norlha core team was assembled in the spring of 2006, and comprised Dechen, Yidam, Dunko and Sonam Dolma. To celebrate, and show the world ...