My aim this lunchtime was to buy some clothes for a bear. As is sadly the case with many of my aims in life, I failed to achieve it I’m not very good at buying clothes for myself, never mind for a bear who I have never met and whose preferences I don’t know.

The bear in question is called Boston. At least, that’s probably how I’d spell his name, but you pronounce it as if it were spelt “Boast-on”. It seems to me a very peculiar sort of name for a bear, but it was christened by my little cousin who is going to be five in a couple of weeks. Boston, or Boaston, or whatever we’re going to call him, started life in a shop which is seemingly no longer known as the Bear Factory but which I’m sure used to be called that not so very long ago. It’s the sort of shop where you go and choose the body parts of your bear and then sit and watch whilst they sew it up in front of your eyes, something which always seemed like a rather strange idea to me, but which is apparently popular with small children. The same shop also does an extensive range of clothing for bears, and it was something along these lines which I have been directed towards purchasing as a present.

Having finally located the appropriate shop in the Bull Ring, I was relieved to find that all the clothes are one-size-fits-all, and so I didn’t have to worry about measurements. That, however, was where the good news ended. I had envisaged that this would be a fairly simple shopping trip – walk into the store, pick up a bear-shaped woolly jumper and walk out again – and so I was in no way prepared for the excessive choice which confronted me

Relatively secure in the knowledge that I was dealing with a boy-bear, I managed to rule out a whole wall of dresses in one fell swoop. Phew. That only left several hundred outfits to examine… The first one I picked up was a T shirt embroidered with “Happy Birthday”. This immediately struck me as an appropriate sort of choice, so I picked it up for a closer look. £6 – hmmm. It didn’t look very substantial for £6, and it occured to me that I had no idea whether Boston’s birthday was the same as my cousin’s birthday. Perhaps not.

The next thing I examined was a Batman outfit. I thought this was quite cool, but I don’t think my cousin is anywhere near old enough to be allowed to watch Batman, so it wouldn’t be terribly helpful. Next to the Batman outfit was a red costume with horns. I picked it up for closer examination, and as far as I could ascertain it was to dress your bear up as a devil. I decided that wasn’t a costume which would go down very well in a Catholic household, and moved on to what looked to me like a Bear-goes-to-work-in-a-food-processing-plant outfit, seeing as it seemed like it included a hairnet. Closer inspection revealed that it was a mummy-outfit.

Feeling that that wouldn’t go down too well either, I moved on to look at the shoes. There was quite a wonderful selection of shoes; there were some brown suede boots with white fur tops which I was quite taken with, as well as some Converse pumps which looked quite cool. I refused to contemplate buying Crocs, even for a bear. There followed a display of clothes which were actually very sweet; a fisherman’s outfit, a policeman’s outfit, a fireman’s outfit, a chef’s outfit. The problem was just that there was so much choice, I simply couldn’t decide what my cousin would prefer…

It was when I moved back to the clothes display and found a rack of High School Musical outfits for bears, that I began to feel a little sick. These were next to the football kits; you can buy the latest football shirt for your bear, so long as he supports Chelsea or Man United. Such an outfit ranges from between £10 and £14. Now I don’t know if I am just particularly stingy – probably I am – but there is something inside me which objects very strongly to the thought of paying £14 on a top for a *bear*, when I would be hesitant to spend that much money on a top for *myself*. It occurred to me that I could probably get three or four T shirts for myself from Primark for the same price as an England shirt for this teddybear, and it all began to seem terribly wrong It’s cute that you can buy clothes for bears – when I was little I had a bear I wanted clothes for too – but I don’t know if it makes any sense if I say I found the whole shop disgustingly capitalist. Perhaps it doesn’t. What I mean is that it just seemed set up to exploit people; it sells very cute bears, which clearly small children are going to adore, and these in themselves are reasonably priced. But then it tries to lure families back in again and again by selling a ridiculous amount of novelty clothes for the said bears, which are horrendously overpriced. I don’t believe in paying vast quantities of money for children to have clothes with logos or football colours on; I certainly don’t believe in paying similiar prices for their bears to have them too. My bear used to wear a knitted jumper and trousers, and he never complained

Sigh. It was at the point where I saw the display of Union Jack underpants for bears that I ended up walking out. I mean, honestly… for a start I debate the necessity of a bear having underpants, and those in the colours of the Union Jack just seem so… I don’t know… “common”, I guess. I know they wouldn’t sell such things if there wasn’t a market for them, but I really do think that anyone who pays £6 for a pair of bear-sized Union Jack underpants has taken leave of their senses.

I have an urge to go home and start knitting wholesome bear-shaped jumpers. Unfortunately, I think I may have got rid of my knitting needles a couple of years ago. Instead, I guess I will have to go home and ask for guidance from the rest of my family as to what bear-outfit they believe will be most appropriate, and return to the shop tomorrow, forcing myself to make a purchase

Tags: bears, clothing

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 7th, 2008 at 2:48 pm and is filed under Random rambling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.