I moved to Ashland, Oregon in 2016 from downtown Los Angeles, California after leaving the fashion industry to pursue my healing.

In 2017, I met my husband at the Rogue Valley Grower’s Market and continued to attend the local markets over the years. I love exploring new artisanal products and local produce and was thrilled to find, Firebird Farms - a yak farmer in the mountains of Ashland.

As an omnivore, I want to support farmers who raise meat locally but I never tried yak. Sofia was a yak had an amazing product - Moroccan Yak Sausages - that were spiced perfectly with just a hint of dates for sweetness; my mouth is watering just thinking about them now. A couple of years laters at another market, Sofia had a ball of yarn on her display table. I was intrigued, “What’s this?” Sofia smiled at me, “It’s yak.”

I had no awareness that yaks produce wool but it made me wonder: what would it look like to make clothing locally?

That’s when I called my fashion college roommate, Andres Alves Aranibar, a knitwear designer who had also left the fashion industry — after a falling out with a previous business partner. I wanted to share this idea I had but I didn’t know where to start.

I knew that I wanted to make nontoxic clothing. Clothing that was meant to last for years, things you could pass on to the next generation without being a burden to them. I was wildly excited about creating a designer knitwear collection using sustainable materials and came up with an even more radical idea,

“If this clothing line doesn’t work out, I’m going to bury the collection in the soil and not only will it decompose back into the soil within two years, it will add value and life back into it.”

After an hour-long phone call about the possibility of this knitwear line on January 27th 2024, Andres reached out to me via voice text saying he was interested in making the pieces himself at my home in Ashland, Oregon.