We founded mYak Yarns to share the beauty of Tibetan fibers with the world.
“My first encounter with a baby yak involved caring for a sick one. As I moved its hair aside to examine it, I was struck by an incredible softness I had never felt before.”
This moment inspired us to introduce the world to the uniqueness of yak fiber. We chose a valley ideal for raising yaks and collecting their undercoat. We then formed a cooperative with hundreds of nomad families and transported the first samples of down to the Biellese area in Italy. That’s how mYak Yarns began.
We are Paola and Andrea, with different life stories that converged in the remote, spiritual land of Tibet.
Andrea
As a veterinarian from Italy, I sought to expand my horizons and bring an ethical approach to my profession.This led me to socially responsible enterprises in remote areas, eventually bringing me to Tibet. There, I trained local veterinarians and learned their traditional medical practices.
Paola
After studying Chinese and living in China for many years in Chinese, I encountered the Tibetan spirit—it was love at first sight. I spent years working on the Tibetan Plateau with farmers and nomads, teachers and children, in an effort to improve their conditions through better healthcare and education, income generation, and social entrepreneurship, all while striving to preserve their culture. Every day, I grow more enamored with this land and its people.
How did we come to love this land, its people, and their fibers?
We shared the life and habits of the nomadic herders and admired the vistas filled with herds and baby yaks. We discovered the incredible softness of their undercoat and knew we had to share this with passionate knitters and lovers of prestigious yarns to ensure that this reality on the Plateau can continue to thrive and sustain itself. We formed a cooperative with local nomadic communities herding yak and Tibetan cashmere goats. Together, we established a sustainable production chain, respecting the traditions of the land, its people, and the animals.
We handcraft our yarns in Italy’s Biellese area, renowned for excellence in textiles.
This is mYak Yarns: born in Tibet, crafted in Italy, offering the finest Tibetan fibers for your creative projects.
Our Commitment to Sustainability
For the environment
We follow traditional Tibetan pastoral practices for raising yaks, guided by nomadic herders who move across the grasslands. The established herding patterns ensure the longevity of healthy pastures. Unlike yaks and sheep, cashmere goats are selective grazers and year after year, their constant grazing changes the fields’ composition, modifying them irreversibly which can lead to desertification. In such a delicate environment, safeguarding the ecosystem is a fundamental concern. Therefore, Tibetan cashmere goats are raised in small herds in rocky areas, better suited for them and the environment.
Most of the cashmere found on the market has a devastating environmental impact, and vast areas of Asia have been permanently destroyed in the production of this precious fiber. mYak Yarns sources its cashmere from these sustainably managed herds. Our commitment to preserving the ecosystem makes mYak Yarns a responsible choice for creative people who value Tibetan fibers and sustainability.
For the local population
Nomadic pastoralism is as ancient as the mountains of the Plateau. We want to give this thousands of years old tradition an opportunity to thrive and prosper in uncertain modern times, making it more fruitful for the people who live on the Tibetan plateau. By promoting and adding value to what the nomads produce since time immemorial, we have the fiber spun in Italy. In this way, we are able to preserve the daily way of life and the natural environment of Tibetan people. In Tibetan culture, each gesture—from the lightning up of the braziers at dawn with propitiatory juniper, to the milking and churning—is a ritual, the meaning of which goes beyond the practical act. We want to preserve this interweaving of human life with nature and animals.
For those who choose mYak Yarns
We oppose short-lived fashion, catering instead to crafters who enjoy creating personal, unique, and original pieces. Our fibers, born in a unique place and collected following the natural rhythms of the animals and people, offer artisanal quality. mYak Yarns provides Tibetan fibers destined to last, becoming cherished heirlooms for future generations.
A world of its own
Even today when with Google Maps, internet and social media, we think we have the whole earth in sight, the Tibetan Plateau remains a world apart. Even further than the never-ending hours by air and by four-wheel drive that are needed to reach its grasslands.
Luckily there is still something to discover.
Here we have a community, the animals they raise, and an extraordinary natural fiber. And we decided to become part of their world, by living and working with them.
This is the story of a very special journey
As we journeyed on our road trip across the mountains, the feeling was that we were in a world of noble warriors, courageous and free. At every bend, that sacred Tibet of the imagination slowly disappeared along with the static facade only seen in postcards and documentaries. Instead, this is a place where Buddhist philosophy meets crazy bikers, where thousand-year-old traditions and modernity live under the same tent, where the natural colors of animal fiber complement fluorescent blue polyester tracksuits.
The Tibetan Plateau redesigns itself by the evolution of its people. And mYak wants to evoke the spirit of this changing land, where small communities of nomadic herders join in a cooperative and follow the advice of an Italian vet.
All this while holding onto the traditions, the philosophy and the strength that make Tibetans a ubiquitous and autonomous tribe, who, in their interaction with other civilizations that might intrude, remain true to their autonomy of thought, of ways, of lifestyles. A kind of modern punk take on the world and life.
The Village
We arrive at a small village set up out of necessity for communication and exchange. The architecture is non-existent; it’s temporary, devised to resolve temporary problems, never to last in time, on the contrary, ephemeral, so that it can be demolished and rebuilt quickly in other places. The value of the ephemeral as a way to survive. An awareness engrained in of all nomadic people’s lives.
People of today and of a thousand years ago
Politeness and strength, kindness and determination, memory and modernity. These opposites live side by side on the Plateau. Like the dark yak wool coats, woven on looms, their family assets, worn over silk or polyester shirts decorated with flowers and imported from China, or with small shocking pink scarves, and adornments of earrings in gold and fossilized coral from the mountains. The men move across the vast mountains on the latest model of motorcycle, which are decorated with saddles and blankets like cowboy horses. The grandeur of the place and the personality of the context is such that even the most modern objects—like a motorbike that replaces a horse, the iPhone to communicate over the long distances, the fluorescent Nikes instead of uncomfortable hiking boots, become immediately absorbed into an ancient and firmly-rooted iconography of place. Even the most technologically-advanced or futuristic object, once it enters the Tibetan context, acquires by magic its own historical significance and looks as if it had always belonged there.
Each gesture a mantra
At night the village empties. The men join the women in the tents on the grasslands with yaks and sheep, the monks reach their monasteries in the mountains, the farmers go back to their farms. Even the work commute becomes a nomadic ritual, cyclic, repeated like a mantra.
Let’s go back to the origin of the fiber
Since the beginning we felt that Italy, with its ancient manufacturing traditions of the highest artisanal standards, would be the perfect place to honor the pure beauty of the Tibetan Plateau’s baby yak and cashmere fibers. Tibetans, as herders and farmers, also have ancient customs of spinning, weaving and dyeing. We seek to support this traditional culture, together with the local population, with the objective of reviving those activities back into the production chain of these areas. We are pleased to soon be introducing this new small production “Made by Hand on the Tibetan Plateau.”
So, after each trip, we take back home the pleasure to be part of this world—its mountains, its nature, and its people. And also the satisfaction of bringing to the most refined and demanding enthusiasts for these exquisite fibers, these natural wonders that come from one of the most extreme places on the planet.
The yak, the owner of these lands
The household yak (Bos Grunniens) is the animal around which revolves the whole life and economy of the Tibetan nomad. From its milk, one gets yogurt, butter and churra, the typical dried cheese of the grasslands. It’s a transport animal indispensable in the long seasonal moves. Sturdy yak hair is used to weave the traditional black nomad tents. Its dung, once dried, represents the only fuel available on the Plateau, vital to survive the very harsh winters. And eating its meat is an indispensable method of getting the calories required to survive in such an extreme environment,
Among the rocks, we meet the Tibetan cashmere goat
We are climbing towards more remote areas, where the plateau grasslands give way to very steep slopes that descend all the way to the Yellow River. This is no land for yaks, who are too heavy to be nimble and require vast pastures. In these extreme lands, for thousands of years, the nomads have been raising the rare Tibetan cashmere goat. It is a very special breed, raised only in small herds, and extremely agile that it can casually jump along the precipices of the highest mountains in the world.
This is our Tibet—the land, the people, the animals, and the story from which mYak is born.
