At 15, I stumbled upon a photograph that changed me forever: a Tibetan nun smiling fiercely in a snowstorm, her maroon robes glowing like a flame. That image ignited my lifelong connection to the Himalayas.

Over 12 years, I traveled nine times to Tibet—drinking butter tea with nomads, tracing ancient carvings in hidden caves, and surviving blizzards in yak-hair tents. During a pilgrimage to Mount Kailash, a wandering monk gifted me a 500-year-old dzi bead and my Tibetan name: Kelsang Drolma (“Guiding Light”). That bead inspired our first collection.