Kathy Dow Discovers

The gift of a Teddy Bear

Hug a bear, hug a memory. A company creating Teddy Bears out of vintage fur is addessing two issues at once.

The bears, made by Bella Bear Company, are created using recycled furs which is an environment friendly tatic because synthetic materials used for standard bears take years to decompose in our landfills.

The second tier of “goodness” from this company is that they will make a teddy bear for you from the vintage mink of a loved one that may be deceased.

While this certainly makes the teddy more memorable than a regular toy store teddy it is the fact that you can incorporate the coat monogram on one of the bears paws that touched my heart. How sentimental can that be?

I must speak for myself. My beloved mother is deceased and she has left behind a mink. Now whether there are animal lovers who are turned off by the idea of wearing fur or not, I can say that having a teddy bear or two made from mom’s coat and given to her grandchildren is one endearing way to keep her spirit around us.

We give teddy bears as new baby gifts; we beam with pride when boyfriends win them at the carnival for us and we hold onto them as keepsakes of times long past. A Bella Bear is one teddy that bears all the warmth that a good memory can bring.

Each bear is hand made, all uniquely designed and one of a kind because the furs range from mink, fox, mohair, sheared beaver or other quality fur coats or stoles. In addition, the furs come from resale shops who have acquired them from people who no longer want to wear fur, or thrift shops who have them for sale.

The most unique thing about this company, started by 16 year old Julie Lamarre 16 years ago, is that she employes “homeprenuers” to help her create the bears in an assembly line style. This is creative business thinking!

Each of her staff of home workers does a portion of the work at their home then passes the incompleted project to the next homepreneur before it finally ends up back in Julie’s hand for finishing touches and her personal stamp of approval.

Standard bear sizes are 12, 18 and 24 inches but Lamaree is open to special projects and has been known to make a full size teddy bear three or five feet tall. Special orders take 6 -8 weeks and prices range from $125 to $350. Think of the possibilites: company logo’s, birthdates, special messages all printed on the bear’s ribbon.

So wait a minute, let me back up, you’re wondering how a 16 year old come up with this idea? Lamarre says the idea came from finding an old vintage fur at a garage sale years ago. She was what I call a “kidpreneur” way back then. Now her own daughter, Isabella (for whom she renamed the company) can sometimes be found taking a work with mommy “business day” like she did at the Holiday Gift Guide Show Media Event in New York City last week.

Out of Highland Park, IL, both mom and daughter traveled to the big Apple in hopes of drumming up publicity for the holiday season. Her bears have already caught the eye of celebrities such as Leo DiCaprio, when his (2007) girlfriend Bar Refaeli, scooped up a Bella Bear at a Golden Globes gifting suite. At the same event several Wisteria Lane “Desperate Housewives” stars also got in the teddy bear mood.

Julie says she has come under fire for using fur, but gently reminds that her bears come from families seeking to create a heirloom or shops that can’t resell old coats. Her position on going green: she’s not using synthetic fur that takes hundreds of years to decompose and she encourages using recycled pressed wood disc joints or recycled post consumer paper whenever possible in building the bears.

Has Julie touched your sentimental “bear” nerve? Get contact information on Kathy’s List and tell her you found her on KathyDowDiscovers.com