Conscious Design

We take pride in designing and producing our products with ethics and the environment in mind. Sustainable quality has been key since we started in 2003.

Our products are designed to last rather than to follow fashion or trends – and we hope that you will love them for many years to come. To reduce waste and avoid surplus stock, we make the majority of our products in small batches, and some on demand.

We use natural fibres and materials where possible and take great care when choosing which suppliers to work with, having built up strong relationships over the past two decades. We do not use or make single-use plastics in any of our processes.

Sourcing and manufacturing within Britain where possible, we boost local skills and economy, and minimise the environmental impact of shipping miles.

You can find more information on our materials and processes here.

Woollen repairs and recycling

With a little love and care, our products should last you long into the future.

We run a creature clinic at our London studio for any of our knitted creatures in need of repair. You can find more details about how to admit your creature here.

We also offer a recycling service for any of our lambswool sweaters, accessories or creatures that have come to the end of their life. Email shop@donnawilson.com and we’ll let you know where to send them. We’ll recycle or dispose of your unwanted items for you, and in exchange we’ll send you a voucher for 10% off your next order.

Our studio

Our nine-person studio is based in Bethnal Green, East London. We’ve worked hard to banish plastic from our studio and supply chain – particularly single-use plastic, which we are now very close to eliminating entirely.

We’ve switched from plastic mailer bags to recycled paper mailers to send out our web orders, sealing boxes and packages with paper tape. We’ve replaced the plastic bags and sleeves used to protect our soft textile products with corn-starch and cloth bags, and we’re trialling a paper alternative to plastic bubble wrap to package our delicate products.

We’re also making small changes and improvements in the day-to-day running of our studio, using recycled paper products, compostable bin bags, plant-based cleaning products and refillable containers, recycling as much as we possibly can along the way.

We’ve even come up with ways of reusing the lambswool scraps from our production process. Bigger offcuts are recycled for use in our Make Your Own kits, while smaller scraps are shredded and turned into woolly stuffing for our knitted creatures and craft kits.

It’s an ongoing project and we still have a way to go – so if you have any other suggestions on how we can improve our sustainability, we’d love to hear them!

Save Our Oceans Shoppers for Tesco

In 2020 we teamed up with Jutexpo to produce a recycled (and recyclable) Save Our Oceans bag for sale exclusively in Tesco stores across the UK. Each reusable shoppers is made from four plastic bottles that might otherwise have ended up in landfill.