Discover Mongolia's Ancestral Art: Cashmere

The story begins on the immense steppe of Mongolia and continues in Kathmandu in Nepal. It's the story of a man who, for the love of a young Mongolian woman, decided to change his life and dedicate himself to the creation of one of the most beautiful cashmeres in the world. It's the story of a man, a nomad amongst nomads, who traveled from his homeland in Germany to Nepal and the Mongolian steppe. It's the story of Christopher, who, during a voyage of discovery, introduces his daughter, Allegra, to the magical fiber that is cashmere. 25 years ago, a new adventure started in my life, which brought me to Mongolia. I met my wonderful wife, Enke. My wife is Mongol. She is one of the reasons why I stayed longer than originally planned. It was a visit and became a life. Christopher left behind an exciting life as an actor and rock music producer. Mongolia became his adoptive home, and on its arid lands, he has set up a company producing luxury cashmere, a treasure guarded by 20 million goats. My idea was to take the wool, the cashmere, from Mongolia to Nepal, where crafting and handcrafting is very much part of their culture and is not so much part of a nomadic culture. Today, he makes one of the finest cashmeres in the world. Some of the world's greatest fashion houses have succumbed to his sophisticated feather-light shawls, soft rugs, and warm blankets. To achieve this level of excellence, he needs to continually travel back and forth across the Himalayas, between Nepal, where the weaving is done, and Mongolia, where he sources the raw materials. Christopher takes Allegra, his 11-year-old daughter, with him on the cashmere trail. His wife, Enke, has stayed in Europe with their two older sons. It is a great pleasure to take my little Allegra into this winter tale and to show her how her other relatives live a very simple life as herders and nomadic people. For more than 20 years, Christopher has been weaving a special relationship with the Mongol breeders who supply the cashmere wool. At New Year, he goes to visit a breeder named Moto. Their families have been friends for a very long time. Every summer, Christopher's family sets up camp on the steppe close by Moto's camp. This is Allegra's first trip in winter. She meets up again with her friend, Doda. Seventh February. Dear Miss Wolf, I will write about Mongolia and draw pictures in this book as part of my summative assessment. I will sort of write a diary so you can see how I learned and what I did during the week of the summative. I will try very hard so you see the countryside like I do. I will also write about the culture. The kingdom of snow and ice. The world seems lethargic, focused on ensuring its survival. Men and beasts have abandoned themselves to the silence of the steppe. The presence of Genghis Khan can still be felt in this valley. His son, Ogedai Khan, established the capital Karakorum some 50 kilometers from Moto's camp. My name is Moto. I'm a breeder. I live on the outskirts of Karakorum with my wife and two daughters. My daughters go to school in the city. My wife and I stay here to look after the animals. For the six long months of winter, the temperature can fall as low as minus 50 degrees Celsius. The goats are protected from this intense cold by the soft down they produce, known as cashmere. It's a magic adventure and the creation of this magic fiber actually happens now in the depths of snow and ice where nature helps the goats to survive and the goats grow a down. A down is under their top hair which creates an extra layer of protection of warmth and this is the finest fiber nature produces. This incredibly soft wool is harvested by combing the animals in April and May when the temperatures rise again. It's a male. This is what protects the goat and be able to survive this winter. Okay, how many grams can you comb out in a goat? Once it has been sorted, you're left with 150 to 200 grams. It depends on the size of the goat. Excellence starts with the right sourcing. There are different kinds of cashmere being collected. There are an A grade or a B grade or a C grade or a D grade. So this is determined on the fineness of the fiber. The finer the fiber, the more is the value. So let's say a fiber which is 14 microns or 15 microns is rated higher than a fiber which is 17 microns. The second element which comes in is the fiber length of the fiber. The longer the fiber is, the better it is for spinning and especially when it comes to hand spinning which is another category to create excellence, there you would need a longer fiber. Life in the countryside. Life in the countryside is no piece of cake, especially in the winter when temperatures can drop down to minus 30, minus 40 degrees Celsius. Plus there is mostly very strong winds that make it very, very cold. To keep warm, herders use dung as fuel for the fire because trees are very seldom. It's really like a sister to me. Her family is like my second family because my daughter grew up with my brothers and I used to always go to her when I was little and like I used to always play with her and ride with her and she just took care of me really. I am a small buyer on those bull auctions but would buy the best. But you don't know what the best will be and I think it is fair that I meet and be in during the winter months with other herder families and Motto is one of those families to show them my respect for the work they do in this extreme winter months and to show some empathy and to show some compassion for how they live. In winter we have to find the most sheltered place to set up camp. The snow makes it hard for the animals to feed and they could die. Every morning I have to give them oats and take care of them. Life is very hard. Great space, very large spaces, no roads which gives a certain freedom but also a certain isolation so you learn to be with each other and you learn to live with each other and you learn to support each other. Mongolia is a land of 1.5 million square kilometers, the size of the whole of western Europe. It is home to just three million inhabitants, one million of whom live on the steppe. In this last bastion of nomadism, winter is synonymous with fragility and uncertainty for man and beast. Things can change radically between two moons. Every winter is unique and sometimes one may lead to an exodus. Every year the Mongolian steppe loses a few more of its nomads drawn by the lights of the city. Today there is a high demand for cheaper products. This increase in volumes of wool has led to a decline in wages combined with overgrazing which is threatening the balance of the ecosystem here. By working for luxury brands, Christopher is looking for quality over quantity, allowing breeders to reduce their flocks whilst ensuring their income remains unchanged. During Taransar, Mongol New Year, neighbors or family visit each other like in the picture. Also people drink amik, mare's milk, and exchange snuff bottles. There are also horse racing. Taransar goes on for three days. A lot of people in the first day go to the high mountains to see the first sunrise of the year. In February, the white month, the lunar year begins. The dawn over the landscape calls for contemplation. The people bless the mountain and contemplate the first rays of the sun which can be a good or bad omen. That star is Uringala. You see it when the sun rises. Good things come to you. If we win the horse race, do we get a gift? You'll see. Bring me your boots. Which ones? Those ones. I don't want to wear those ones. Come along and hurry up. It's the day of the traditional New Year horse race, the nadam. The families get ready to go and support horses and riders. My name is Doda and after I finish my school I'm going to be a veterinarian because I love horses like animals. I used to ride racing horse when I started like when I was five years. The nadam is a race for children. Entrants are aged between 5 and 12 years old and race over 25 kilometers across the steppe. I'm really proud of my dad because he's really good at training racing horses. So yeah, everyone knows my dad because he has lots of nice really really fast horses. Friends, cousins and neighbors separated by many kilometers come together for the nadam. Moto's horse comes second. The second place was close, Moto. It was very close. The first four or five horses were very close together. Very good. Any horse running? Yes. I wish you a happy new year. It's nice to see you. The Mongols have a strong sense for color. Essential colors which are strong and stand out and very much alive. When it comes to textile in Mongolia, colors are weave, forms are condensed, everything is strong and to a certain extent I would say robust, very appealing to the eye. When I come to a horse race in the middle of winter, how they are all able to express themselves in their colors, in their forms, their way to dress, this is very impressive to see. Look at our societies in the west, we would see most of the people are very similarly dressed. This kind of individualism, this kind of personal strength and expression, this is something very appealing and very refreshing and I think I appreciate that very much. Moto, I'm very happy to be here. I would like to make a toast to you and your family, your children, your friendship and hospitality you have shown us in the last 20 years. It's a pleasure for us too. Thank you. Thank you both, thank you. You know you can always count on us. Thank you. At the New Year dinner, friends are presented with ayrag, fermented mare's milk. On the table is a huge preparation made using an odd number of cakes. The Mongols call it a platform cake. Two layers of happiness surrounding one layer of unhappiness, according to their beliefs. Smells like, it tastes like very fresh ayrag. How did you do this? You'll have to ask my wife. How did you do that? It's younger than young. Very good, thank you. Allegra, she's a very good friend with Doda and I think this will help to deepen their relationship. Two more, okay. I'll eat one for Enki. She is very jealous that I'm here and she's not here. Ulaanbaatar is the capital of Mongolia. It's from here that the wool is sent to Nepal. Christopher wants to show Allegra how the wool is sorted and cleaned in the factories on the edge of the city. Sorting and cleaning the wool is a very delicate operation. It varies according to the quality of the wool and they must remove any superfluous elements. After cleaning, only one third of the initial weight is left to be spun. The nomad's expertise covers the production of this exceptional wool, but there is no culture of weaving on the step. The wool will cross China and the Himalayas to arrive at Christopher's workshops in Kathmandu in Nepal. Kathmandu. Christopher chose to live and set up his two workshops here 20 years ago, fascinated by the richness of the Nepalese culture. I thought it was more interesting to work with a culture where hand spinning and hand weaving was still part of tradition and of excellence uninterrupted from the past let's say many hundred years ago. The city of Kathmandu was built by the Navars, one of the numerous indigenous peoples of the Himalayan valley. They represent half the population. The Navars are considered to be experts and their reputation reaches beyond the borders of Nepal and has done so for more than a thousand years. They are reputed architects, sculptors, goldsmiths and weavers. The clouds of cashmere must first be spun using a very precise and delicate process. Around two kilos are spun each month. It is not enough to just find the best raw material, but then it is important to to be able to to guide, to guard and to control the transformation of that raw material into the best next step. So that means spinning and later weaving and finishing. When Christopher returns to the workshop, it's an opportunity to greet each artisan. Some have been working with him for 20 years. He's changed their status, paying them a salary when they used to be paid by the job. The hand can exactly make this definition between raw and fine. That is something which interests me. Since everything is handcrafted, it has a signature and because it has a signature, a particular signature, there would not be a single piece which is the same. The objective of a machine would be to do 10,000 meters the same tissue. If you ask us or me to do 10,000 meters of the same tissue, I'd say you can't do it. Every meter will be different or every centimeter will be different and that is the beauty I fight for. Christopher was inspired by the number 108, a sacred number in Buddhism to create his range of colors. This number represents the 108 names of Buddha, the 108 beads in the rosary and the 108 gestures of tantra and yoga. The dye is made using colors that respect white, beige and brown, the three natural tones of Kashmir. What would be nice here is if we translate this into a scarf, a kind of a strobe, rather warm. We start the warping after we finish the silk Assembling the warp chain is the first stage in weaving and requires real expertise. It takes five days to make a blanket with 6,000 weft threads and 10,000 warp threads, representing three kilos of Kashmir spun over six weeks. One of the aspects of our atelier is that we're looking for artisans who have also an artistic quality and at least can develop into very highly skilled craftspeople. I'm a sort of chief of an orchestra. It starts very small. At the beginning you may have just your chamber orchestra. Now we are quite a symphony. We have many, many players and they all have somehow been harmonized in the process. My skill as a conductor is to create the space or the timelessness, but I would be nothing without the people who are doing or playing very finely the different instruments they have. The workshop has existed for 20 years and generations of artisans have worked here. Christopher works with Nevar's but also with around 15 other ethnic groups that make up the country. 50 years ago they would not have spoken to each other. 20 years ago they would not have sat together and worked on something together. 15 years ago they would not have sat together and eat together. So there is something where I'm trying to unite and bring people together. The atelier isn't just a place of work, it's also a place of life. Traditionally, the Nepalese don't spend much time at home. At the workshop, life is organized into working hours and breaks that help encourage the artisan's well-being. They're actually very good and it's incredibly good for your whole body and your eyes and your mind because it's a lot of concentration and I love that they enjoy it. Christopher is reviving a particularly complex expertise, an ancestral technique that combines dyeing and weaving called ikat. Ikat comes from the verb mengikat which means to knot together or to envelop. What makes ikat unique is that the threads are worked before they are dyed. After choosing the pattern and the color, the threads are tied before being dyed to protect them. The tied parts don't take on the color. The protection is then removed and the skeins are spun and placed in the shuttle. When they're woven, the pattern appears slightly blurred on the edges. I want to congratulate everybody to a very good working rhythm we have found. It is a difficult product to make the ikat. I think we have found a good solution to put teams of three together. I still haven't understood how he's calculating the thread, so thank you. Who has learned from him? Who knows now? It is very important when we have a skilled knowledge, knowledge from a skilled worker like him, that we pass it on to others and share. I think one of the nicest things about life is that we constantly learn, learn new interesting things. We are quite a big family. A family of 85 is not easy, but the work can only go well when we all relate to each other in each different department. I live in Berlin now, but I used to live in Kathmandu. My mom is in Berlin now. She has a test coming up because she is learning German. It's quite funny because in Nepal, I used to be known for being both Mongol and German, but in Germany, I'm mostly known for being Mongol because everyone else is German, so I want to be different. It's very, very special to be only with my dad because we don't do this very often. Good. I'm excited to come back, but I'm really sad to go. Bye-bye. In their family home, Christopher and his wife raised their three children, Tinge, D'Artagnan, and Allegra in the Buddhist faith. Buddhism has been part of his life for more than 30 years. Christopher has met the Dalai Lama and has taken on this culture and its philosophical values that bind him even closer to Mongolia and Nepal. The growth and various influences of Hinduism and Buddhism in Asia over the centuries have allowed the two religions to prosper in Nepal. This coexistence and fusion is considered to be unique. Swayambhunath, the Temple of the Monkeys, is one of the most ancient and most sacred places in Kathmandu. It is located on a hill overlooking the valley. That's some you missed. Hindus and Buddhists come together here to pray. The children grew up here in Kathmandu. Our house is literally next to Swayambhunath. There are many things to do in the morning. You come here, you feed the birds, you feed the monkeys, you count the steps, you learn the ABC, and walking with me every morning here, this is part of our daily exercise. Is there a particular reason why prayer flags are only the primary colors? Well, I think Buddhism has chosen the primary colors, and the meaning of the prayer flags is that you have the prayer printed onto the flags, and then the wind is transporting the prayers through space. So this is also called lungta. So it's a prayer carried by the wind. This temple is Hinduist. It fell down during the earthquake on the 25th of April. There were two towers. One is still there, and the other tower collapsed. That was struck by lightning, and our bell fell down too. In April 2015, the Kathmandu Valley was hit by one of the most powerful and devastating earthquakes experienced in recent years. More than 8 million out of a population of 28 million Nepalese were affected. It was Saturday. Normally, it's an off day, but I was needed to finish something urgent, which had to be submitted on Sunday. That's why I came to work on Saturday. And then, suddenly, there was a jolt, and my room started shaking. The room already had a little crack. There were no victims from Christopher's workshop, but there was a great movement of solidarity to help out family, friends, and neighbors. In the courtyard, just by the volleyball court, they built shelters for the victims. Christopher really takes care of his employees. Maybe that's why I have this strength. Me and my family are fine. If we have a problem, we have our company, our workshop. I will go and seek help there. Those who are in worse situations, who lost everything, who have more problems than me, I can help them. And I will go to help them. That's how I offered relief to help people. So it's not me directing as a big producer the aftermath of the earthquake, but it's they themselves did that. This was very, very nice to see that after building up of a team within the workshop, this team then worked within the community. There was a great sense of sharing. Finishing is the final step in the weaving process. The final step in some magnificent fabric creations, each one like poetry, made from these wonderful materials. Each one is painstakingly examined to ensure each rare, unique creation is perfect. Everyone in the workshop is fiercely proud of their work. I'm very interested in suspending time, which gives space for creation. When you do crafting, you have to create the space in which time can develop itself. You cannot tell a painter to do faster. Maybe there are moments when he just has to reflect or when he doubts. Space like what we have in our workshop also creates that liberty. The future is work and the future is more work and maybe more complex work. But this more work and more complex work has very much to do with my particular curiosity. I am curious of where my curiosity will bring me. We are going on at the moment with the energy I can bring in. I think some people learned now enough that they could make their own workshop. This would be part of the philosophy we have to let everybody do what they think they can do.