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Much as we’d love to report that the married physicians behind locally based, globally celebrated, high-end denim brand Ginew (ginewusa.com) only ever bothered with med school as a means of breaking into the fashion industry, Dr. Erik Brodt (associate dean at Oregon Health & Science University’s School of Medicine and member of the Ojibwe tribe) and Dr. Amanda Bruegl (associate professor of gynecologic oncology and member of the Oneida tribe) never really thought about clothes until their budgets afforded greater consideration.
“When we got our first jobs [in 2010], we became more intentional about what we were purchasing—removing ourselves from fast fashion, buying stuff that would last longer,” Brodt says. “There was something frankly lacking in the fashion ecosystem. People weren’t doing contemporary Native American clothing that could be worn every day—stuff that would last a really long time due to the high-quality materials being used.”
To help fill that hole, the nascent designers came up with a few preliminary garments that caught the eye of Japanese tastemakers. “Basically, one jacket got noticed by the world’s most prominent boutique denim show,” Brodt says. “They invited us to Tokyo and everything took off from there.”
Over the past decade, as the company further expanded its online catalog, Ginew’s cultural footprint grew alongside high-profile product placements (She-Hulk’s smashier cousin, played by CGI’d Mark Ruffalo, rocked a Ginew tee) and well-chosen collaborations (a limited-edition tee designed by friend-of-the-label Steven Paul Judd helped fund the Tony Hawk Foundation’s 2022 construction of a Warm Springs skatepark for the area’s tribal community).
At present, like much of the larger industry, Ginew has shelved any imminent plans for expansion in response to current sociopolitical trends. Specifically, with imported denim tariffs approaching 45% and homegrown manufacturing communities terrorized by ICE raids, survival’s the name of the game just now. Brodt feels fairly confident that, whatever the future holds for Ginew, Portland won’t play a central role. “We’re big fans of where we are, but we would never open a shop in Portland,” Brodt says. “To be honest, if we were just pursuing fashion, we would’ve had to move.”
So long as their positions keep them within commuting distance of Pill Hill, the couple will continue to run Ginew’s operations from Portland while juggling disparate but insanely competitive career paths. By this point, a number of their colleagues are at least dimly aware of Brodt and Bruegl’s rather buzzier side hustle, though few could appreciate the extent to which the doctors suffer for fashion. “It’s not like we talk about it at work, really, but this isn’t normal,” Brodt laughs.
See the rest of Willamette Week’s Best of Portland 2025 here!
