When I was a child, my grandmother used to embroider wolves into the collars of my winter deels. “They’ll watch your back,” she said, tugging the thick fabric around my shoulders. Her fingers moved fast and certain, the needle catching light as it passed through wool. She stitched with her back straight, her eyes set, as if the thread connected her to something bigger than the room we sat in—something older than her, older than all of us.

Now, I embroider wolves onto nylon jackets.

I design hoodies with the silhouette of a galloping horse and hang them in glassy shops downtown, where bass-heavy Korean rap plays and Gen Z kids come in with disposable film cameras and oversized coats.

They flip through the racks like they’re in Tokyo or Seoul. But when they pull my work from the hanger, they’re touching something from the grasslands.

My name is Naran Erdenechimeg. I’m 26. I was born in Ulaanbaatar, a city that shivers with dust storms in April and freezes solid in January. We’re the coldest capital in the world, but our fashion is warm-blooded—fierce, high-collared, often handmade. My brand, Erkh, means “freedom.” It’s what I felt the first time I cut the arms off my mother’s old deel and wore it with sneakers.

When I stepped outside that day, a man shouted at me on the street: “You ruined it!” But two girls stopped me and asked where I bought it. I told them I made it myself.

That’s how it started.

Fashion is changing here. Not long ago, it was only Korean imports, Russian leftovers, or Zara at the mall. Now, a small collective of us—photographers, stylists, DJs—are rebuilding an aesthetic from the bones of our heritage. We thrift in Narantuul Market for vintage deels, collect discarded soldier’s belts, source wool from herders’ cooperatives in Arkhangai and Bayankhongor. We turn it all into something new: a silhouette that belongs to Mongolia but could walk a runway in Seoul, Shanghai—or even Paris.

We host pop-ups in shipping containers. We shoot lookbooks in old Soviet apartments. We don’t just want to sell clothes; we want to tell stories. We want to make people feel something when they wear them. Sometimes, my clients cry.

Some are locals, curious about their roots. Others are Chinese tourists, Koreans studying in UB, even Mongolian-Americans tracing their lineage through fabric. One woman from Chicago bought a cropped jacket lined with faux sheep fleece and said it reminded her of her grandfather’s yurt. Another guy from Shenzhen said he’d never seen anything like it before—“It’s like historywear,” he said. I liked that.

We’re not the only ones stitching history into clothes. Across East Asia, I see young designers doing the same. In Okinawa, brands are reviving Ryukyuan dyeing techniques. In Taiwan, indie labels are working with Hakka stripes and temple banners. I follow a Kazakh TikToker who turns eagle hunter vests into viral looks. There’s a hunger now—for identity, for roots, for craft. Maybe because everything else is so synthetic.

Even in Mongolia, we feel the pull of global fashion. TikTok scrolls just as fast here. H&M opened in Ulaanbaatar last year. But when I watch the local kids on the street, I notice something: they’re remixing things. A fur hat with a varsity jacket. A deel over cargo pants. A pair of hand-stitched felt boots under a denim mini-skirt. It’s chaotic—but in the best way. It feels like a conversation.

This is a country where nomads now check livestock prices on WeChat. Where yurts have solar panels. Where you might see a teenage girl milking a cow in the morning and designing digital clothes on her phone by night. We are not either/or. We are both.

The hardest part is convincing older people that what we’re doing is not disrespect. “Why ruin a deel?” they ask. “Why shorten it?” But fashion is always about cutting and reshaping—threading the past into the present.

Sometimes I bring my grandmother into my studio. She’s 81 now and walks slowly, but her eyes are sharp as ever. She watches as I pin fabric to mannequins, sketch with chalk onto camel wool, choose lining. Once, she held up a crop top I’d made and said, “This won’t keep anyone warm.”

“No,” I told her. “But it might make someone feel brave.”

She smiled and sat down.

Now when I design, I start with one question: “What would my grandmother say?” She’d probably laugh at the side slits, the mesh, the horsehair fringe. But I think she’d understand. My stitches are just longer now, the wolves sharper, their backs still turned toward the wind.

Because like her, I’m trying to protect something. I’m trying to remember.

And I’m not alone. There’s a quiet movement happening here. You can hear it in the beat at underground fashion shows. You can see it in the streets of Ulaanbaatar, in the way kids walk—with their hoods up, deels cut short, collars high, stitched by hand. It’s fashion that feels like armor.

Not to keep the world out.

But to carry our story forward.