Celebrating 12 years

On November 12th, Norlha celebrates its 12 years of existence. Twelve years ago, on a chilly autumn day in 2007, we moved 100 meters from our tent workshop into our newly constructed one. We had 40 workers then, many still in their twenties and all born and raised as nomads. Now, twelve years later, there are 120 of us. The original batch are now reaching their forties, are married and have families. Mothers have turned into grandmothers, and the eldest have retired. The new generation, in their teens when we opened, have gone to school and work from our custom-made ERP system, a long shot from our first stock keeper who refused to part from his abacus.

Our products have grown with our artisans. We began with spinning and weaving simple scarves, that grew more complex and varied then delved into felt, knitting and tailoring, all the while building a range of products that define a lifestyle around the precious fiber yielded by the yak and the fine craftsmanship of our workers. Arnys, a fine men’s shop on the Rue de Sevres was our first Paris customer, and gradually we moved from B to B creating our brand, now distributed on the Tibetan Plateau, in China and in Asia, Europe and America.

Today we celebrate what has been our journey for the last twelve years and share it with our favorite photographs from each year. Most of all we wish to thank the 120 members of the Norlha Family who has shared all these moments with us all and those who have supported us, through work, patronage, advice and friendship.