With the weather growing nippier and nippier by the day, it's hard not to want to just bury yourself under the covers and hibernate. Shutting everything out and getting a lot of sleep? Sounds like a good idea. Now you can also do it looking like how Mother Nature intended it to be a bear sleeping bag.
A what now?
A bear sleeping bag. It's a sleeping bag shaped like a bear - an actual bear. The sleeping bag is not actually a new product (it was first posted by Eiko Ishizawa on Cargo around 2013 to gather orders) but it was first released as a sculpture called The Great Sleeping Bear in 2007 by the creator after hearing news of a bear in Bavaria in 2006. Crossing to the Alps' Bavarian side after escaping from the Italian end, the bear had become problematic but, because it was the first wild bear seen in 170 years, there was a great discussion on whether it should be left alone or hunted.
Unfortunately, the bear's life was ended by hunters, a tragic story that prompted Ishizawa to create the sculpture to show the contradicting nature of the relationship between people and nature.
"I attempt to create this work as to be a medium for audiences to generate one's transitional perceptions and fantasies in reality," wrote Ishizawa.
(Translation: If you've ever wondered what it's like to be a bear, here's your chance!)
The bear sleeping bag is about six feet long so it can fit most people in. Zip it all the way around and you'll really truly look like a bear, which was made possible by Ishizawa by having the sleeping bag hand-made. Unfortunately, this is also what makes the bear sleeping bag very expensive at $2,350.
There is no word on how many people have bought the bear sleeping bag but the creator did note that seven were to be made for the first batch.
To mimic the actual spread of the bear population, Ishizawa also called on those with bear sleeping bags to send in pictures of them using the sleeping bag as well as where they used it to create a collage of man/bear adventures.
Are you raring to get The Great Sleeping Bear for yourself?
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