Sleep Like A Bear

Down, synthetic, draft collars—sometimes we get a little to technical when it comes to choosing a sleeping bag. Isn’t it all about getting a good night’s sleep? And if that’s true, then we all should envy the bear: Our ursine friend always get a winter’s worth of winks without worrying about temperature ratings, thanks to the fact that his fat n’ furry body is the perfect slumber wrap.

Enter artist Eiko Ishizawa’s the Great Sleeping Bear sleeping bag: While slim on technical stats, this bag promises a bruin’s rest while in the woods. From the artist:

The true story of the bear in Alps: He was a great brown bear in Alps, and people were scared that he was so powerful moving mountain to mountain in such a short time. In the end, after the long battle of chasing period with hunters, he was hunted down.

Based on this story, I make a fictionalized version of this bear in our society as a sleeping bag of a wander bear. The longing for the ideal place and wishes makes animal wandering around and not settled down.

You can dream there for your wish comfortably and feel being protected by the look of scary great bear. Wishes to feel life and free and go to the nature to survive from this systemized culture and modern society, you can take this sleeping bag and sleep as a wander bear out there.

 That’s pretty much what I would’ve said—take that, Big Agnes. There is a catch, though: Ishizawa, a Japanese-born, Amsterdam-based sculptor, built The Great Sleeping Bear bag as an art piece, not a commercial product. But if any sleeping-bag manufacturers out there know what’s good for them, they’re clamoring to contact Ishizawa right about now.

Despite the obvious risks of getting shot in a national park or experiencing traumatic accidental human-bear love, I think there’s a real market for this. Take it from someone with personal experience: Being a bear rules.

—Ted Alvarez

Via The Goat