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There it is sitting on the table, a growling teddy bear, peeping from behind a birthday cake decorated in brightly lit candles surrounded by other presents. The birthday child discovers it immediately and clutches in passionately in their arms. They press their face into the soft pelt and cuddle the bear's tummy and paws, tugging at his beautiful necklace. Immediately they love it and tuck the bear under their arms to inspect the other presents. Mum is so happy to see the delight on the child's face and remembers how difficult it was to choose with so many designs and sizes. But once the bear had looked her in the eyes she knew it had chosen her! She also remembers that once she also had a Clemens bear which she had treasured for so many years.Although the appearance had changed and the bears are no longer stuffed with "wood-wool", this bear had all the same emotions that her bear had all those years ago. Now the child blows out his seven candles and the teddy bear looks over the child's shoulders and whispers to the mother, "I told you so!"

"My name is Teddy and I come from the house of Clemens Spieltiere. Unlike my brothers, I have a honey coloured pelt although my brothers have brown, white and green and come in sizes of 10 to 90 centimeters."



Clemens Spieltiere makes a lot of different types of bears, the "Nostalgic" teddies, the "Growing" bears, the Panda, the "Baby bears" and the "Cotton" bears.

At the start, there is an idea of how the bear should look. This design is put on paper and only after a lot of thoughtful consideration are the first samples sewn, and before production finally commences.

Some of our teddies are chosen with a machine washable woven plush so if that cup of hot cocoa accidently drops, they can be cleaned. Of course, it goes without saying that the pelt is hardly inflammable.

Similar to a complicated dress, the bears are composed of a lot of cuttings; two for the paws, two arms etc. Indeed each bear has at least twenty pieces of material and if the pieces are bigger than 8 millimeters they have to be cut by hand. Before that, the pattern is transfered to the fabric by silk screen printing.

Next the parts for the head, arms, legs and body are sewn together on the reverse side. A seamstress at Clemens has to be trained for at least 6 months before she can use her skills.


The manufacturing of bears differs considerably from other toys. For instance once a vinyl doll is created each doll will look alike but if one of the mohair or woven plush pieces gets a little out of line, or if the seam line differs slightly, then the bear will look very different. This also applies to the insertion of the eyes, the application of the smile and the stuffing. The stuffing is an essential step as it creates the "feel" of the bear. It is these disciplines and quality control that are so necessary to make sure each bear looks like the reference sample.

The seamstress plays a vital role. Once the nose has been manually embroidered, the eyes have to be inserted. These "safety" eyes are made of high-grade synthetic materialand are fixed on the
head's plush shell so that they cannot be removed.

They are then ready to get their final shape. Head, arms and legs are slipped over a tube through which foamed plastic chips are inserted. The material is skilfully turned to and fro by the worker's hands to create the facial character of the bear.

In the next department, the head, arms and legs are fastened to the flabby body which is then stuffed and the point of entry sewn up manually.

Next a hard brush is used to scrape away the unwanted piles before a long needle is used to shift "small cushions of fat" as the designer would have wanted. Also wrinkles may be smoothed out or the facial expression enhanced.



Finally in the painting department, the bear has their make-up done. An air brush is used to draw the snout, eye corners and the mouth before the bear may be decorated with a necklace or smart bowtie.

It is only then that the bear must pass the stringent quality inspection to receive the famous Clemens "yellow triangle" which specifies the name and its proud country of origin!

Click here for Clemens Spieltiere home

Click here for Clemens Spieltiere history


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