Ulzii has sold two yurts already–real, whole room, boiled wool felt yurts–for only 3000 Euros each.  The full sized yurts are advertized by a much smaller table-top model that looks like an interesting child’s toy.

Ulzii, who is Mongolian and was trained as a water engineer, has the most lovely cashmere shop–which is the most dangerous place in all of Brussels. For me and my friend Alvilda. And our pocketbooks.

Ulzii knows Alvilda, who lives in Brussels and works a little too close to Ulzii’s shop. And now, I’m afraid, Ulzii also knows me. Her cashmere is amazing, and she comes up with her own designs and orders them made in various colors and sizes from her suppliers in Mongolia. She has found a way to support the economy of her country and make a living. This model reminds me of those efforts by many Asian Americans in the San Francisco Bay Area Asian American arts community to develop cottage industries in Cambodia, the Philippines, etc. especially to help support poor women in those countries. In particular, I had met one Khmer (Cambodian) American woman, a designer, who had woman and girls in Cambodia whose primary income was sex work, trained to sew together chic T-Shirts, which she then later silk-screened with her own socially conscious designs in the SF Bay Area. Another woman I know works to raise money for the Aeta, a tribe in the Philippines. It takes about $500 to buy a single carabao/kalabaw (water buffalo) which can bring a family out of poverty. To raise funds, she has created a children’s book, My Kalabaw Friend (http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/272665), holds community events, and sells goods made by the Aeta.

Of course, it is not merely enough to have things made — one must also know the market in the cities in which these products will be sold. Ulzii’s cashmere is incredibly soft–and reasonably priced. So far, I have only gotten the open drape lavender sweater–a prototype–which seems as though it has been custom made for me. But, I get paid on July 1st! At least in this case, Ulzii has her market nailed (in other words, when I step back in her store, I am doomed).

Ulzii’s eponymous shop is at Espace Louise 18 – 1050 Bruxelles.

~Wei Ming Dariotis