Polyester dominates hunting gear because it's cheap to produce and easy to print camo on. But natural fibers like merino wool, waxed canvas, and boiled wool are quieter, safer, and better for your body. Fieldborn is built on that belief. Natural fiber only. Every piece. Every component. Always.
No petroleum. No shortcuts. No exceptions.
For most of hunting's history, gear was made from wool, canvas, and cotton. These materials worked, and still do. Over the past thirty years, synthetic fabrics became the industry standard, largely because they're cheaper to produce and easier to manufacture at scale. Polyester is now the default in most hunting gear on the market.
Fieldborn is a return to natural fiber, built with the same technical precision as modern performance gear. Merino wool, waxed canvas, boiled wool, and duck cotton. Materials that have outfitted hunters for over a century. Materials that work with your body instead of against it.
This isn't nostalgia. It's a technical argument. Natural fibers thermoregulate, resist odor at the molecular level, silence your movement, and don't melt when a campfire spark lands on your sleeve. We build every piece of gear around that argument.
"Natural fiber only. Zero synthetics. Not as a marketing claim. It is the only standard we build to. No exceptions, no excuses, no compromises."
The case for natural fiber isn't just about sustainability. It's a field performance argument. Research from endocrinologists, toxicologists, and field scientists has documented meaningful differences between synthetic and natural fiber across several areas that matter to hunters. Here's what the evidence shows.
Polyester contains phthalates and bisphenol compounds that can leach through skin during physical exertion and heat exposure. These are classified hormone disruptors, a consideration worth knowing for all-day wear in the field.
Synthetic fiber creates an environment where odor-causing bacteria thrive at measurably higher rates than natural fiber. Polyester base layers produce detectable scent signatures that merino wool does not. In the field, that difference is the hunt.
Polyester melts at low temperatures including campfire sparks, ATV exhaust, propane heater proximity. When it melts, it bonds to skin. Natural fibers char at the point of contact and self-extinguish. For hunters who run a camp, this is not an abstract risk.
The slick synthetic surface that markets itself as "quiet performance fabric" is louder against brush, bark, and stand hardware than woven natural fiber. Wool and canvas absorb contact friction. Polyester broadcasts it.
Every wash cycle of a polyester garment releases hundreds of thousands of microplastic fibers into watersheds. Those fibers end up in fish and wildlife. Natural fibers biodegrade completely. For hunters who care about what they're protecting, this is a real consequence.
UV exposure and repeated heat cycling break down polyester at the molecular level, accelerating chemical off-gassing, weakening fiber integrity, and producing more detectable scent over time. A merino jacket improves with age. Polyester deteriorates from the first season.
Before synthetics took over, hunters relied on four materials that worked, and still do. Merino wool for base layers and mid layers. Waxed canvas for outer shells. Boiled wool for insulating mid layers. Duck cotton for work pieces and brush.
Fieldborn uses all four. Every construction decision is made to maximize field performance from natural fiber, not to compromise it. No synthetic fill. No nylon face. No polyester lining. Not in a single component of any piece we make.
18.5-micron ZQ-certified merino. Soft enough for direct skin contact all day, warm enough for a November tree stand, odor-resistant enough for a 4-day elk camp. Thermoregulates dynamically, cools on the approach, insulates in the stand. No treatment required. The fiber does the work.
10oz paraffin-waxed cotton duck from Halley Stevensons in Scotland, the same mill behind Barbour and Filson. Sheds water without a plastic membrane. Silent in brush and against stand hardware. Field-renewable with wax, the same jacket for thirty years. No PFAS. No membrane. No synthetic.
Felted merino compressed under heat until near-windproof. Acoustically dead against brush. Naturally water-repellent without treatment. Retains warmth when wet. Used by mountain hunters across Europe and North America for generations before synthetics arrived, and still the best single-layer cold-weather option available.
12oz stonewashed cotton duck for upland hunting and brush work. Tough enough for blackberry and barbed wire. Breathable enough for October mornings. Quiet enough for any cover. Stonewashed for break-in comfort from day one. OEKO-TEX certified colorants. Made in Georgia by Mount Vernon Mills.
A complete layering system for the tree stand and spot-and-stalk hunter. Base through outer, every fiber natural, every component cotton-threaded, every zipper brass. Built to perform in the field without a single synthetic component.
Every layer. Every seam. Every component. Zero synthetic content anywhere in any Fieldborn garment, not in the shell, not in the lining, not in the thread, not in the zipper tape, not in the labels. This is a guarantee, not a marketing claim. We publish our full bill of materials for every product.
We repair any Fieldborn garment for the cost of materials. No time limit. No proof of purchase required. No questions about how you hunted in it. Canvas can be re-waxed. Merino can be reknit. Seams can be re-stitched. We built these pieces to last decades, and we'll stand behind that.
We use paraffin wax, lanolin, and beeswax-based compounds for water repellency. No DWR chemicals. No PFAS. No forever compounds in any form. Every piece is field-renewable, a wax bar restores full performance in fifteen minutes at any campsite.
We publish our fabric mills, yarn sources, and cut-and-sew facilities for every product. You can look up the farm our merino wool came from by lot number. You can look up the mill our canvas came from. No supply chain we're not willing to show you. No story we can't back up.
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Holden LaCarte picked up a bow three years ago and hasn't looked back. What started as a curiosity turned into a full obsession, whitetail in the early season, turkey in the spring, learning the land, studying the animals, and figuring out how to be better in the field every single time out.
Like most new hunters, Holden started building his gear kit by doing what everyone told him to do. Performance fabric. Technical construction. The whole pitch. But the more time he spent in the field, the more questions he started asking about what that gear was actually made of.
The research led him somewhere unexpected. Polyester, the fabric in almost every piece of hunting gear on the market, is a petroleum-based plastic with a documented chemical profile that doesn't belong against human skin for twelve hours at a stretch. Natural fibers outperform it on scent, sound, safety, and longevity. And yet almost nobody in the hunting industry was building around that fact.
Holden had an advantage most founders don't. His family has been in the apparel industry for over 35 years. He grew up understanding how garments are built, how supply chains work, and what separates a well-made piece from a compromised one. Fieldborn is the intersection of that background and a hunter's conviction that the gear you wear in the field should be as natural as the land you're hunting.
Fieldborn launches Fall 2026, six weeks before whitetail season opens. The waitlist gets early access to the full Rut System, a 10% pre-order discount, and first notification when the Cold Hollow, Highline Hoody, and Ridgeline Jacket are ready to ship.
We're building this brand in the open. Waitlist members get field notes from product development, fabric sourcing updates, and an honest look at what it takes to build a hunting brand that refuses to take the shortcut.
No spam. No obligation. Just first access when we launch.
Your information is never sold or shared. We send field notes and launch updates only.
We'll send you field notes as we build and first access when the Rut System is ready to ship Fall 2026.
Hunt clean.