Rat Boi

Rat Boi, styled RAT BOI by the company, is an American clothing label founded and designed in Ventura, California, that makes cotton underwear, bras, swimwear and small-batch basics, with most pieces sewn at a family-run factory in Los Angeles. It describes itself as a women-led small business, sells in sizes XS to 3X, and works under the motto "Waste Less, Wear More." The founding year and the founders' names are not published on the brand's site, and this entry does not guess at them.

A correction to the old record

The museum's previous description of Rat Boi called it a streetwear-influenced label known for gender-fluid designs, bold graphics and a rebellious DIY look. The brand's own pages do not support that picture. What Rat Boi actually sells is quieter: plain, solid-color underwear and basics in organic cotton and TENCEL lyocell, offered in long color runs with names like ochre, moss, butter, mocha and sage. The irreverence is in the name, not in the product. A reader who arrives expecting printed slogans and punk hardware will find something closer to a well-made cotton brief.

Made within ten miles in Los Angeles

The core of the Rat Boi story is local production. The company says many of its styles are made entirely within a ten-mile radius in Los Angeles, from knitting the fabric to cutting, sewing and finishing. That is unusual for a label of its size. Most small underwear brands buy finished fabric from overseas mills and send cut work to contract factories wherever the price is lowest. Keeping the knitting and the sewing in one city shortens the chain and makes small runs practical, because a factory a few miles away can turn around a reorder of one color without a container shipment.

Not everything is made in California. The brand says its overseas partner factories are WRAP certified, an independent audit scheme covering wages, safety and working conditions. The split is typical of a label that wants to keep its underwear local while sourcing some knit tops or swim pieces abroad.

Fabrics: organic cotton, lyocell and deadstock

Three materials carry the line. The first is GOTS-certified organic cotton, which the brand uses for much of its underwear. The second is TENCEL, the Lenzing trade name for lyocell fiber made from wood pulp, which gives a cooler, smoother hand than cotton and takes dye well. The third is deadstock, meaning surplus fabric left over at mills and given a second use. Deadstock limits how many pieces can be cut from a given roll, which is one reason the brand talks about small batches.

Rat Boi underwear and swim

The underwear range is built on a handful of cuts. There are low-rise and high-rise briefs, a "shorty boi" brief that sits between a brief and a boyshort, a thong, and soft unwired bras in the manner of a bralette. Prices sit around 34 dollars a piece, with a discount for building a three-pack. Most styles come in more than a dozen colors, and the palette leans toward earth tones and washed pastels rather than the black, white and nude that dominate mainstream cotton underwear.

Swimwear follows the same logic: simple shapes, solid colors and the same size range. The pieces are meant to be mixed and worn often, which is the practical meaning of the brand's motto.

Packaging, shipping and the climate claims

Rat Boi ships in mailers that it says are made from recycled plastic collected in coastal communities in Southeast Asia, and it offsets the carbon from shipping. Those are the brand's own claims, repeated here as claims. Offsets and recycled-content mailers are now standard among direct-to-consumer labels, and the more meaningful commitment is the one that is harder to fake: local, small-run production.

Athletes, press and the brand today

The company has released collections with Maddie Mastro, described by the brand as a three-time Olympic athlete, and with the entrepreneur Toni Bravo, and it lists coverage in Elle, Teen Vogue and BuzzFeed. Those partnerships suggest where the customer is: young, outdoorsy, and drawn to basics that do not look like everyone else's.

Today Rat Boi sells mainly through its own website, with underwear, bras, sets, dresses, tops and swim sharing one site. It remains a small Ventura brand with its sewing done in Los Angeles, and its most distinctive product is still a plain cotton brief in an unexpected color.

Last updated October 7, 2026