YITSO HIMA - CHARU Designer Brand
What Are We Doing?
Personnel
Training local people in handicrafts and passing on culture.
Platform
Founding of the designers' union, promoting their products and conducting cultural media outreach.
Design
Working with local artisans to redesign products and packaging free of charge.
Museums
Participation in the design of the Sanjiangyuan Regional Museum, driving local cultural tourism industry.
SanJiangYuan
Designers Alliance
Founded in 2017 as a nonprofit initiative by the Sanjiangyuan Environmental Protection Association in collaboration with multiple designers, the Sanjiangyuan Designers Alliance focuses on providing innovative design training and management guidance for traditional craftsmanship in Tibetan communities. The program aims to promote sustainable community development, increase herders' income, and foster a nomadic lifestyle that aligns with modern times.
The Alliance conducts design training and commercial guidance for agricultural and pastoral areas. Over 30 designers, artists, architects, photographers, and business consultants have participated in its training programs, benefiting 10 cooperatives and social enterprises with more than 100 pro bono skill-building sessions.
Tsoten
Tsoten Village, meaning "Ten Thousand Lakes" in Tibetan, is located at the source of the Yangtze River at an altitude of 4,600 meters. The average age of the herders in the village cooperative is 60.
With support from the government and environmental organizations, textile experts are helping the herders develop card-woven products.
This craftsmanship benefits the community and passes on nomadic wisdom.
In Tsoten Village, ecological protection policies have forced some elderly herders to move off the grasslands, returning the land to wildlife.
At the invitation of the Tsoten Village Secretary, the Sanjiangyuan Ecological and Environmental Protection Association returned to Tsoten in 2019 to carry out environmental protection and sustainable development work.
Teachers from the Sanjiangyuan Designers Alliance have successively arrived in Tsoten, revitalizing the herders' craftsmanship and boosting the cooperative's orders.
Some of the elderly members of the Tsoten Cooperative are disabled or have disabled family members who require medical care and nursing care. Others, no longer able to endure the harsh conditions of herding, have long lived in resettlement villages.
They hope to pass on their nomadic culture while also earning a living with their own hands.
They are all herders who once volunteered to protect the Sanjiangyuan ecological environment.
Phadrokbha
The Sanjiangyuan region—source of the Yangtze, Yellow & Lancang Rivers—nurtures countless lives and is a vital ecological reserve in China.
The brand , Phadrokbha at 4,600 meters above sea level, is a cooperative of herders who voluntarily protect the river sources.
The Highland Walking Hat
Designed by Mumu, takes inspiration from undulating mountains and vast pastures—abstracted into blue triangular and red square motifs, becoming a moving landscape of the plateau.
Nomads’ Lho Lho
The brand name Nomads’ Lho Lho is the transliteration of the Tibetan phrase “the herder’s treasure,” originating from the Gannan Ganga Grassland’s Shan Jue Ganga Eco-Team. With the mission of protecting ecology and sharing culture, they tell stories of ancient nomadic life and the growth of life itself.
Through innovation in traditional felt-making, the workshop shapes natural elements into beloved plateau animal forms. These small emissaries of nature carry the warmth of the grasslands beyond the pasture.
Nomads’ Lho Lho provides young herders with opportunities to remain in their homeland, sustain themselves through craft, and create additional income for local families—supporting both culture and livelihood.
