FOR BEAUTIFUL PRODUCTS
We love clothes. The fabric on your skin, the seams that sit, the beauty in the detail. That is why our collections are usually made-to-order. In FY 2024/25 82 % of our sales volume was generated with binding pre-orders.
WHAT ARE WE MADE OF?
Let’s be transparent up front: The origin of a material alone says little about its full environmental or social impact. “Natural” does not automatically mean “better”, there are always multiple factors at play. That said: 78 % of our revenue in FY 2024/25 came from products containing natural fibres such as cotton and linen, animal materials such as wool and leather, or regenerated fibres such as viscose and lyocell, which are obtained from cellulose by a chemical process. 22 % came from products containing synthetic fibres of fossil origin, mainly polyester, polyamide and elastane. We use those where a garment needs stretch, shape retention or abrasion resistance.
Cotton
Cotton is by far our most-used fibre, followed by sheep’s wool and polyester.
That’s why we are committed to contribute to the improvement of cotton farming practices globally through our membership in the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI).
Farms participating in the Better Cotton Initiative programme are audited against the Better Cotton Initiative Principles and Criteria and hold a licence or certificate to sell their cotton as BCI Cotton. The Better Cotton Initiative System works with a mass balance model. Cotton from participating farms is mixed with conventional cotton after ginning. BCI Cotton is therefore not physically traceable to our products, and our products are not labelled as containing BCI Cotton. According to BCI, its programme is designed to support participating farmers in improving water efficiency, soil health, crop protection, biodiversity and working conditions.
Better Cotton Initiative Membership number 1003496, listed at bettercotton.org
Materials of Animal Origin
We select animal materials following the criteria of our banned materials list. In 2025 we built on this list with the development and publication of our DRYKORN POLICY: ANIMAL MATERIALS. It sets out our sourcing principles and due diligence processes in detail and is part of our contractual package with suppliers.
78 %
of 2024/25 revenue from natural, animal and regenerated fibres.
22 %
of revenue from synthetic fibres.
Top three fibres by volume*
Cotton 43 % | Sheep’s wool 13 % | Polyester 13 %
*FY 2024/25. Fibre origin is not a measure of environmental impact.
Vegan, Mulesing & Leather
Vegan
We cannot claim with complete certainty that our products are vegan. Why? Because not even our suppliers can. Animal-derived substances turn up in places nobody looks, like dyes, detergents or finishing agents.
Mulesing
Mulesing describes the surgical removal of skin folds from the hinds of lambs in order to prevent parasitic infestation. It is practiced only in Australia and usually without anaesthetic: we reject this practice.
Measured by revenue, 44 % of our wool comes from Australia. And while until FY 2024/25, we relied on industry-wide declaration systems for non-mulesed status, we see that this is not sufficient anymore. Those systems are not independently verifying the mulesing status on the farms but later in the supply chain. We have stopped treating that as sufficient. We therefore do not currently make a verified mulesing-free claim for our Australian wool. We are now in direct contact with Australian wool organisations on alternatives to mulesing.
Leather
The leather we use comes from cattle, sheep and goats - animals that are usually kept and slaughtered for meat production. Our sourcing policy requires suppliers not to source leather from animals raised solely for their hides.
In your DRYKORN product you won't find
Angora | Mohair | Materials from exotic species | Real fur, except shearling and cowhide
The ban is written into our DRYKORN POLICY: ANIMAL MATERIALS, which is part of our contractual package with suppliers and signed by them. It takes effect before an order exists: our product managers and buying team are trained on the banned materials list and do not select these materials in the first place.
Quality Checks
We do not test every material in a lab. We test where the risk is: new suppliers, new qualities, findings from previous seasons, data sheet entries that look too good. Testing is carried out exclusively by external laboratories against defined test methods, on the final production goods, after all finishes, washes and prints.
Every material must meet defined minimum requirements: pilling behavior, dimensional stability, colour and light fastness, seam slippage – just to name some. Our suppliers accept them contractually and confirm them in a material data sheet for every new article. Our wash tests run five cycles as standard, more if a material looks risky. Where a material shows limitations, we adapt the construction, label the garment, or work with the production partner on an improvement.
CIRCULAR ECONOMY
Repairs at DRYKORN
Bought it from us? Contact us for an individual repair assessment. We look at each piece individually and come back to you with what we can do and what it would cost, before we start. For complex invisible mending we pass pieces to Kunsto, a specialist workshop in Bayreuth. And if you ever lose a button, just contact us and we will send a replacement free of charge. For more, check out our Repair Guide.
Textile Waste
In FY 2024/25, we disposed of 1.9 tonnes of fabric swatches and irreparable returns through the recycling system operated by TURNS circular system. 234 kg went into fibre-to-fibre recycling, 829 kg were downcycled for industrial use and 774 kg were incinerated with energy recovery. The latter is no recycling strategy but destruction – the last resort for absolutely unusable textile items.
This overall is a minor volume measured against 458.9 tonnes of textiles we placed on the market. Nevertheless, we believe it is important to start building new partnerships and systems to kick off change.
Learn more.
