These Designers Just Want You to Get Amped About Their Chaga-Dyed Clothes

Amiel Stanek

January 17, 2019 at 4:00 AM

“We were going through foraging books, and interestingly enough there is a whole category of mushrooms used in dying, but most of them aren’t edible. We started experimenting with chaga, which was a total wild shot, because it wasn’t in the dying-fungi category—we just kind of stumbled on it. It worked really powerfully as a dye, and people are putting it in their coffee! We were like, “Jackpot!” It’s a part of healing, and we were able to take it full circle.”—<strong>Max Kingery</strong>

“We start with wild Siberian chaga. It’s really amazing—we have one mushroom that’s the size of someone’s lower torso. The unsexy part is the extraction [of the pigment from the mushroom itself], which is what creates something that actually adheres to fabric.”— <strong>Max Kingery</strong>

“Health starts with what you put in your body, but you have to think about what you wear, too. We don’t have respirators in our facility. Our warehouse looks way more like a kitchen than an industrial dye house. It smells like cooking!” — <strong>Max Kingery</strong>

“What we’re doing is fundamentally different and more challenging. We’re not looking at a Pantone book and asking, “What’s pretty this season?” Our stuff has a lot more intention, and we’re super restricted. It takes months of R&D to create a color story. And while the idea that there are these “garden variety natural dyes” might spark the interest of people, we want to transcend that, exploring those things that people have a special relationship with. We want people who love chaga to see our chaga-dyed clothes and get amped.”—<strong>Max Kingery</strong>

“<a rel="nofollow noopener" href="https://www.bonappetit.com/story/what-is-saffron?mbid=synd_yahoo_rss" target="_blank" data-ylk="slk:Saffron;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas" class="link ">Saffron</a> is so sought after—it’s more expensive than gold—and the first thing that people react to is the price. But there are the perfect bits that get sold for cooking, and then the less-perfect stuff that gets turned into supplements and things like that, which is what we use. Using something that might otherwise be regarded as waste feels good to us.” —<strong>Max Kingery</strong>

“We’re not trying to be like, “Hey, most of your clothes are dyed with tons of scary chemicals!” We want to change the conversation around it. We want people to say, “Hey, this is dyed with one of my favorite things!”— <strong>Bobby Bonaparte</strong>

“We didn’t have some greenwashing plan to pivot to natural dyes now that this stuff is hot. And we hope that every day we’re getting better and better. We want you to be able to bury these clothes in the backyard and let them go back to the earth.”— <strong>Max Kingery</strong>

“With chemical dyes, everything comes out looking perfect and the same. But that’s just not how it is with these dyes. Everything we make is one of a kind and unique—way more wabi-sabi. The pH of the water matters. The temperature matters. Even the light you’re seeing the garments in matters. They look natural, and feel natural as well.” —<strong>Bobby Bonaparte</strong>

Olderbrother founders Bobby Bonaparte and Max Kingery serve up looks inspired by an unlikely source: the vibrantly hued ingredients of the moment.

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