Why yak

Three fibres come off the animals in Uyanga, and they are not interchangeable. Cashmere, sheep wool and yak khöövör each behave differently on the body and each takes a different amount of land, time and animal to produce. Yak sits in a spot the other two don't quite reach: fine enough to wear against the neck, tough enough to survive a decade of wearing.

Yak

A yak gives up its soft undercoat once a year, when it sheds in spring, and the usable share of that is small. The fibres are fine in diameter and hollow through the middle, which is why a yak scarf feels light in the hand and still holds heat at minus twenty. It resists pilling and abrasion better than cashmere of comparable fineness, so a yak cardigan tends to look like itself for far longer. Undyed, it comes in the animal's own browns and greys. At the end of its life it breaks down in soil.

Cashmere

Very soft, very light, and the fibre most people already know by name. Goats produce it in small quantities too, and the best of it is spectacular against the skin. It is also more delicate: cashmere pills and thins with wear in a way yak generally doesn't, and goat herding puts harder pressure on pasture than yak herding does, since goats crop grass closer to the root.

Sheep wool

The workhorse. Warm, hard-wearing, produced at a scale the other two never approach, which is why it costs what it costs. The fibres run thicker than fine yak or cashmere, so wool does its best work in socks, outerwear and things that sit over another layer rather than directly on the neck.

What yak gives us

Softness usually comes at the price of durability. Yak is the exception we build around: rare because the animal produces so little, soft because the fibre is naturally fine, strong because it is structured to survive a Mongolian winter on the animal before it ever reaches a person.

Rare by nature. Soft by touch. Strong by design.