Jobair Jaber was first introduced to the fashion industry while studying business at McGill University in Montreal. “My network was full of creatives,” he says. “I helped out on production and worked on freelance projects here and there.” Those early experiences nurtured a vision that Jaber had for a minimalistic, utilitarian capsule collection. But it wasn’t until he was in the U.K. completing a Ph.D. in industrial psychology that he realized he would regret not trying to make this dream a reality.

So in 2020, Jaber put his degree on hold and flew back to Montreal. As he was doing research into production, the idea of using Canadian-sourced materials and local manufacturing stuck out. Soon, his initial concept shifted to align with this notion, and he began to focus on a farm-to-garment theme inspired by enduring heritage styles that are made with the best textiles possible. “I was slowly shifting my own beliefs about the place I wanted to have in the fashion industry, and I started to fall in love with making things in Canada as a principle,” says Jaber. “We’re staying close to this heritage idea of connection to a Canadian identity, but we’re trying to let the materials speak for themselves.”

Milo & Dexter pieces are made to be a permanent part of your wardrobe rotation. When designing things like cozy cable-knit turtleneck sweaters and classic wool blazers, Jaber turns to a variety of sources for inspiration: costumes in films like The Banshees of Inisherin and Maestro, vintage pieces and even his parents’ closet. But it’s the use of Canadian wool that sets the label apart. “This clothing is made to be passed along to your kids and then their kids,” he says. “If someone doesn’t like the garment, you put it back in the soil, and it’s just going to decompose.”

Jaber, who sits on the board of the Canadian Wool Council, spent two years learning about the country’s wool production—or lack thereof. This led him to connect with yarn producers and organizations advocating to shed light on a forgotten industry. Now his goal is to educate consumers on where their clothes truly come from. “We’ve done a thousand tours for people to show them how things are made, because we really have an open-door policy,” he says. “The next stage is to go to the farm and see where the sheep are.”

Jobair Jaber

“Back in the day, there was this idea that you wanted to keep trade secrets. Modern entrepreneurship is full of collaboration. In a field where you need creativity and people to think outside the box—especially in Canada—that’s something we need to keep doing to strive forward together. I’m hoping it’s a win for everybody if we revive industries, bring back innovation and retain talent coming out of schools.”

“I went to business school, and you get taught to focus on financial metrics and processes. The beautiful thing about being in a cultural, artistic field is you can mirror those things. I’ve given myself and the team a chance to not be so driven by purely economic gains and to see how we can actually change things and put our values first. Sometimes it’s more difficult and gives us slower growth, but at least we can all sleep well at night. We’re not putting products out in the world that are harmful or have any sort of negative effect. We’re actually just going back to tried-and-tested ways of making things that have been thrown out or forgotten, and we’re trying to keep that heritage alive.”

“If you’re a consumer, what’s better than knowing that you can trace your product back to a farm? I have this belief that we’re all going to slowly move into that new paradigm. In our supply chain, we’ve taken into account that we want retailers to be involved. And by ‘retailers,’ I mean small independent boutiques, because they are the fabric of a great economy and society. In small towns and big cities, they have really great [insight] into what people—especially that conscious consumer—are looking for because of the conversations they get to have with their communities.”