For people, or sometimes, things we love, we attempt the impossible. In my case, this meant that last Friday I obsessively tapped at my phone and reloaded the Ralph Lauren Polo app, and then refreshed the Palace site, and then back to Ralph, and back again to Palace, all in hopes of buying a sweater with a bear on it. Ralph’s Polo Bear, specifically on a navy blue sweater, is mid–skate trick and dressed in what amounts to business-casual: Palace-branded blazer, a striped tie, a light blue button-down, and chinos. The details are perfect: On the bear’s wrist is a sporty watch band, and he’s wearing argyle socks. The item sold out long before I got anywhere near buying it, like I knew it would. The inevitable was still infuriating—I described the app with words not appropriate for this website. Eventually my co-workers just stopped responding to my whining. I sent another colleague working remotely a one-word message: seething. And deep down? I know. I know it’s a stupid thing to get this mad about missing out on a bear sweater, even if the bear is doing a sick heelflip. So, lately, I’ve been searching for an answer. Why, in God’s name, do I love this bear so much?
I didn’t actually own a Ralph Lauren Polo Bear anything until 2013. I was enduring my first brutal Chicago winter, having just moved to the city from Southern California. My then girlfriend, now fiancée and I were taking refuge from the cold in a very busy restaurant to celebrate our two-year anniversary. She had a present for me, and pushed a bag across the counter. I reached in and felt the thick wool of a sweater. But this wasn’t just an anniversary sweater. It was an anniversary sweater embellished with an anthropomorphized ursine mammal, dressed smartly in a yellow V-neck sweater, a neatly done-up tie, a blue blazer, and chinos. A Polo Bear from Ralph Lauren to call my own.
Two thousand thirteen was on the tail end of the so-called #menswear era. My peers’ obsessions with tailoring, double-monk-strap shoes, and all things prep were coming to an end, but my own fascination wasn’t quite over. The Polo Bear (originally marketed as the “Preppy Bear”) was a grail for me before we used that exact word. I was working in advertising at the time but harbored a desire to write about menswear and woke up hours before I needed to report to my day job to write for tiny sites, pitch stories, and apply for internships. For me, someone still green to the industry, the Polo Bear symbolized everything I wanted to be a part of: a prep icon from America’s most important designer that I had seen over the years on people like Kanye West (still at the peak of his powers then) and John Mayer (stylish, but not yet the Visvim god we know him as today).
But until that night, the Polo Bear was mostly out of reach. The bear was introduced in 1991 after Ralph Lauren employees gave their boss and his brother Jerry teddy bears (made by famous German toy maker Steiff) dressed like them. Lauren was taken with the gift and thought the brand should start selling the plush toys in stores. The first run of 200, dressed in clothes made in the same factory that produced Ralph’s clothes for humans, sold out in a single weekend at the Madison Avenue flagship store.
The bear was so popular the RL team started putting him on everything: sweaters, tees, hats, ties, and denim jackets. The bear (he doesn’t have a name) was like Barbie in his ability to master any profession or skill: in a tuxedo like 007 holding a martini, dressed like a U.S. Olympian toting a basketball, wearing one of Ralph Lauren’s American flag sweaters with his hands tucked in a pair of blue jeans. The bear became a way for Lauren to express the full breadth of his brand, from the ultra-fancy Purple Label to sporty RLX to RRL, which indulged fantasies of storming the western frontier. And I'm far from the only one obsessed with the bears. Lo Lifes, the crew of Ralph Lauren loyalists, prize the furry symbol. "If you're a true collector, having multiple bears in your Polo collection is mandatory," prominent Lo Life Rack-Lo told Fashionista earlier this year. But Polo ceased manufacturing bear-related items in 2001, when Ralph Lauren ended its partnership with Steiff. When did the brand bring the Polo Bear out of hibernation? 2013.
After a year in Chicago, my girlfriend and I had had enough of the city. It was either bone-chillingly cold or scorching hot. We moved back to the friendlier climate of Southern California. I took an unpaid writing gig for a website, which a couple months later turned into a paid one. Over the years, my Polo Bear sweater allowed me to function in the menswear world even when I didn’t feel like I belonged. When I was assigned to interview a celebrity in person for the first time (RIP, Victor Cruz), I wore the Polo Bear sweater. At the holiday party for my first full-time writing gig, I wore the Polo Bear sweater.
My prized possession has served me well in our five years together. I never really thought about buying another; I’d checked that box in my mind. But recently my obsession with the Polo Bear returned. Over the summer, like a young misguided tween, I fell in love with someone new—someone more rebellious and adventurous than my longterm partner. He’s a new bear, riding his surfboard across an intricate Fair Isle sweater vest inlaid with rows of repeating pineapples and hula girls, and sayings like “Life’s a Beach.” The vest comes in the explosive bright colors of a lei: purples, oranges, greens, and yellows. I even wore the sweater vest during the summer heat—the bear is surfing—an absurd choice for an already absurd sweater. Having one Polo Bear sweater is one thing; having two starts to make it your thing. I was becoming a living rebuke of Marie Kondo: Acquiring items—the right ones, at least—can spark joy, too.
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And then Palace came along, right when I least expected it. I desperately wanted this bear for what I thought was a simple reason: because it’s unlike any other we’ve seen in the icon’s lineage. The Polo Bear wears American flag sweaters or golfs; he does not skate. (Even the surfer bear is wearing plain blue trunks that read more like dad getting lessons than some class-skipping stoner.) And, somehow, my whining worked. I despaired enough about not getting the sweater that a friend who knew I was desperate nudged someone else with an extra. I went back and forth for a couple days, never totally believing it was going to work out, and then it was mine. I ran around the office, held the bag up while yelling skate bear!. I was red-faced and kid-on-Christmas-morning excited, possibly sweaty with happiness.
I'm still trying to pinpoint what about this sweater makes me tick, because the joy I felt wasn't just because it was a "unique bear." Maybe it's that I'm growing up, set to be married, and ready for something new: If the original Polo Bear was my security blanket in a new career, the Palace sweater is more grounded in the acceptance of the style I’ve settled into and the bear-adorned items I inexplicably love.
Perhaps this is all more explanation than necessary. That I am obsessed with a fucking bear doing a heel flip speaks for itself. In my idiot brain, there is nothing cooler. But I wonder if my fascination might have something deeper to do with the way I’m currently dressing. I’ve noticed something different about my clothes this year. I adopted a pair of purple Converse shoes the color and texture of taffy. I bought a pair of Jolly Rancher blue sneakers. I’ve taken to wearing a hat with a puffed-up panel and brim that a colleague described as a “cartoon version of a hat.” Well, maybe I’m a cartoon version of a man, I told him. Which might still be true, but looking at these clothes collectively makes me think I’m making an unconscious effort to inject some joy, color, or whimsy in my life at a time when everything else in the world is falling apart. Maybe I’m trying to bring back some of the warmth I felt on that frigid night in 2013. Doom and gloom is practically everywhere. But it can’t catch a bear on a skateboard.
