From sheep to sleepwear: how we trace our merino wool
When we developed Dagsmejan Stay Warm, choosing merino wool was not simply a question of finding a fibre with exceptional performance.
We also needed to know where it came from.
Stay Warm is the only Dagsmejan collection using an animal fibre. That made animal welfare, responsible land management and traceability fundamental requirements from the very beginning.
It is why we chose to work with NATIVA™.
It starts at the farm
The journey begins with certified farms such as those we visited in Uruguay.
The NATIVA™ protocol is built around animal welfare, land management and social responsibility.
Animal-welfare requirements include areas such as nutrition, health, husbandry, breeding, safe shearing and the prohibition of mulesing.
For us, this is particularly important: responsible wool should mean much more than a single claim.
Knowing where the fibre comes from
The NATIVA™ merino wool used in our Stay Warm collection is 100% traceable and mulesing-free, sourced from certified farms in Uruguay.
That means traceability begins with the farmer — but does not end when the wool leaves the farm.
From raw wool to clean fibre
After shearing, the raw wool moves on for processing.
In Uruguay, we followed that journey to Lanas Trinidad, where the wool is first scoured to remove natural grease, dirt and other impurities before being combed into smooth, uniform wool tops.
This step showed us how much expertise and infrastructure sits between a fleece on a sheep and the beautiful fine fibre we eventually recognise as merino wool.
It also showed us how circular thinking can be built into industrial processing, from wool-grease recovery and biofertiliser to water treatment and biogas production.
Traceability continues beyond the mill
From there, the wool continues through the textile supply chain.
At a simplified level, the journey looks like this:
Farm → shearing → scouring → combing → spinning → knitting → finishing → garment manufacturing → Dagsmejan
For Dagsmejan Stay Warm, the merino wool comes from Uruguay, before the yarn is spun in Austria and the fabric is knitted and dyed and the garments made in Lithuania.
For Dagsmejan, that ability to follow a fibre through its journey is enormously important. It means the story behind Stay Warm is not simply about where the wool was bought. It is about understanding how it was produced and the systems behind it.
Going beyond traceability
Traceability tells us where something comes from.
But responsible sourcing also means considering how it is produced.
NATIVARegen adds another layer by working with farms on regenerative agriculture and measuring indicators including:
- soil health
- biodiversity
- carbon
- water management
The programme takes a broader approach, considering the land, animals, farmers and local communities as part of the same system.
For us, that combination is important.
Why this matters to Dagsmejan
Merino wool is an extraordinary performance fibre.
Its ability to provide lightweight insulation while helping the body maintain a comfortable sleeping temperature makes it particularly well suited to our Stay Warm collection.
But performance alone is not enough.
We want to understand the materials we use: where they come from, who produces them, how animals are cared for and how the land is managed.
Travelling to Uruguay and following our wool back to its source gave us the opportunity to see the beginning of that journey for ourselves.
And ultimately, that is what traceability means to us: connecting the finished product back to the people, animals and places that made it possible.
