What Olderbrother is known for

Founded in 2014 by Portland-raised designers Bobby Bonaparte and Max Kingery, Olderbrother makes gender-neutral clothing dyed with hibiscus, wood bark, turmeric and natural indigo rather than synthetic dyes. Every garment is now cut, sewn and dyed at its Los Angeles studio.

Olderbrother began in Portland in 2014, founded by Bobby Bonaparte and Max Kingery — two Portland-raised designers who met after their fathers happened to sit together on a flight. The brand set out to build a slow-fashion label around natural dyeing and minimal, gender-neutral tailoring, deliberately positioned against the pace of conventional fashion production.

Color is drawn from plants rather than chemistry: hibiscus, sustainable wood bark and turmeric sit alongside natural indigo, with madder root, myrobalan, oak galls and iron oxide used to shift and darken tones. The brand states plainly that "there is no place for heavy metals or toxins" in its process, and uses alum and plant tannins as mordants to fix color without synthetic fixatives.

The label has since relocated its production to Los Angeles, where every piece is now cut, sewn and dyed in-house from organic Japanese cotton, linen and wool-rice paper blends. The FW21 collection pushed the natural-dye process further through fermentation-based color work, continuing the brand's focus on honoring indigo's agricultural origins and the farmers who grow it.