Every Wild Donkey piece starts its life in Turin, sourced from a quality supplier we trust to get the base fabric and garment right. From there, it travels to Pescara to be brought to life in the hands of a small group of specialist craftspeople, each chosen for one specific skill rather than a multitude. Different workshops, different corners of the country, one standard the whole way through.

We could send any part of our manufacturing process elsewhere. Cheaper base garments, embroidery runs at a factory that also does a thousand other brands, washing outsourced to whoever quotes lowest that month. We don't, because the shortcuts show up eventually: in the stitching, the colour fastness, the way a hem sits after three washes instead of thirty. Keeping the whole chain in Italy, and specifically with craftspeople who are experts in one process, means someone is accountable for how things turn out. It's slower and costs more, but it's the only version of quality we're interested in standing behind.

Every specialist Wild Donkey treatment is handled by expert craftspeople at our own factory in Pescara. Gradient dyeing means someone spraying pigment onto a garment by hand, one piece at a time, until the colour runs from dark to light exactly how it should. Stone washing tumbles actual pumice against the fabric, meaning no two pieces fade in quite the same way. Sun fading is achieved with an acid spray aimed by hand at seams, pressure points, and edges: the same spots that would fade first if you wore the piece for ten years, except it's done now. Nothing comes out identical on purpose. If every piece looked the same, we'd know something in the process had gone wrong.

Every garment is built from heavyweight cotton or French terry (240gsm and upwards), sourced from our supplier in Turin, as we believe a t-shirt or hoodie that feels substantial out of the wash is one people actually keep wearing. Treatments come after, from dying to printing, handled in small runs so no two batches behave in quite the same way. Some pieces end up with a slight twist at the seam or a shrink you only get from a strong wash. The kind of thing a factory chasing speed would sand out, but we leave it in.