The brand SILKE was obtained in the year 2000: a wide range of rag dolls and cuddly animals in superior qualities, intended for smaller children, which is now being produced at Bad Kösen too. The SILKE brand will be continued in the excellent Bad Kösen tradition, and it ideally complements our naturalistic toy animals.

Attention to Detail:
Because our designers have an eye for those special details, the faces of our animals are particularly lifelike.

A sense of what is important:
We want to give children an understanding of the big and the small in the animal kingdom. Extremely shy small animals such as the common dormouse and fat dormouse are difficult to observe in the wild as they conceal themselves from humans. In soft-toy form, children can come to love them and at the same time develop a desire to help protect our wildlife.

Design:
Our soft toys are very lifelike, thanks to our multifaceted design process. It is of key importance for a good design that the designers observe the animals in their natural habitat or in the zoo. Based on the drawings they have made, they then make clay models of the animals. Patterns are produced in line with these models which are then revised over and over again until such time as the soft toy envisioned by them has been realised.

Top-Quality Material:
Many animals are impressive because of the beautiful pattern of their furs. In order to represent these patterns appropriately, we realise different alternatives.

Sometimes we assemble the pattern from various individual patches, like, e.g., with the young wild boar; sometimes there are patterned fake furs available which we can use, like, e.g., for the cow. But usually the prefabricated patterns intended for the garment industry do not suit the needs of our animals. Therefore we have designed the print samples for several animals ourselves. This is a very time consuming process which demands combining careful studies of nature with technological expertise.

Selecting the perfect eyes is often very difficult as these are decisive for the facial expression of the animal. We only insert top quality plastic eyes, some of which are even customised products which are manufactured exclusively for us. Generally the eyes are further accented by the special cut and the paint.

Hand-Crafted Products:
The quality of the materials used calls for careful and therefore costly making up. This means, for example, that longer-pile fur fabric is cut out by hand. A particular distinction of our soft toys is that they are made up of a large number of individual pieces - more often than not, over seventy are involved. As the pieces are frequently very small, stitching has to be done very carefully. The sewn pieces are then reversed and the safety eyes inserted. To ensure that the animals are soft and cuddly and that they also maintain their shape over a long period, it is important that they are filled with the right stuffing. Many more procedures have to be carried out before the toy is ready, i.e., sewing up, shaping, combing, embroidering and painting.

Quality is controlled closely at each step in the production process.

Cuddly toys are for playing with:
We want children to have a cuddly toy that will see them through their whole childhood. This means that the cuddly toy must not only look good but must also be a toy that they really enjoy playing with.

Our animals have a neutral expression on their faces so that children can "make them feel" whatever they want. In addition, our soft toys are given a natural bearing. They are beautifully soft and movable, optimally designed for children's play. As a result, we have received the "good play characteristics" distinction for many of our toys, serving to confirm the fact that they are designed with the utmost in children's play requirements in mind.

You can fall in love at any age!
The naturalistic design, the carefully executed details and the fine material are so attractive that many grown-up enthusiasts wish to own our animals for themselves.

Our cuddly animals are sought after by collectors and will claim the most comfortable space in the flat.

Patience being one of their endearing features, they will be content with accommodation on the back seat of a car, and they are faithful travelling companions on long journeys.

The spiel gut Award:
Since 1954, educationalists, psychologists, doctors, technicians, experts in design, chemistry, electronics ... and parents - scientific and practical people - have been examining and assessing toys - from babies' rattles to material for experimenting. They work on a honorary basis and are independent of the toy industry and retailers. Their spiel gut recommendation signifies that this toy has been tested with children and examined by experts with a positive result. Their criteria: play value, material, workmanship, construction, durability, safety, design, size, quantity, quality of the instructions for playing or making, suitability for the appropriate age group ...

Basically, we assume that certified materials purchased in Europe do conform to their certificates. European producers and their employees are sensitised for this matter for many years. Our products have passed all controls by TÜV, Öko Tex and other organisations.

However, we did not want to be lulled into a false sense of security. Therefore we talked to the German TÜV about opportunities how we could enhance our safety and quality standards.

As a result, the TÜV will not only control the safety of our products but also include in its checks the quality of our production process.

Our products will in future carry a claim to this effect. By implementing this additional step we want to prevent mistakes due to operating blindness. Furthermore, we have asked our suppliers to prove their safety and quality standards also critical.

We would like to point out that our customers can continue to buy Kösen without hesitations.

Kösen Toy - ÖKO-TEST "Very Good"

Every year just before Christmas, ÖKO-TEST carries out tests on toys. Amongst others, plush toys from 20 different manufacturers were tested this year. Only 4 manufacturers passed the test without objection - amongst others the KÖSEN toy received the highest mark "very good". According to ÖKO-TEST, many products received alarmingly low marks.