The Story Behind Love Better

It’s hard to believe that the Bird & Bear’s Love Better mission-driven merchandise is marking 5 years! Let us tell you the story of how Love Better came to be.

The 3Ps pillars of the Bird & Bear Collective are Purpose, People and Product ~ in that order. It began with our PURPOSE of creating a space with big open barn doors, and a brand rooted in the Bird & Bear’s vision and metaphor for inclusion and the wild that’s within and around each of us.

Then came PEOPLE, through invitations to connect and gather in our backyard barn or in places throughout the community. We were a brand and a a space designed to bring people together and create more intersections and impact across work, life, creativity, wellness, curiosity and leadership. At the barn and through the brand, we were bringing Birds & Bears together across many different facets of our local community.

When we introduced the brand in 2019 it was a hypothesis, rooted in purpose that together we could reimagined inclusion here in this local wilderness. It was happening, beautifully and organically, until the 2020 pandemic closed the barn doors, and put a massive pause on our mission and hopes for the Bird & Bear Collective. We were patient, but it soon became clear that we wouldn’t be gathering for a long time, and so in a giant leap of blind purpose-driven faith, we decided to step into the world of PRODUCT.

The journey into having our own brand of product came YEARS sooner than we were have planning. It came with NO experience and little to no funding to support it. But we were on a wild, scared, and brave mission to keep the Bird & Bear alive, and as such we pivoted into product….and the beginning of LOVE BETTER.

At the time, Summer of 2020, the world was on fire. People were sick and dying. People were losing jobs. We were in the wake of George Floyd’s murder and a new era of racial reckoning. It was the election year 2020. There was division, sadness, hate, anger and fear all around us.

So when this PURPOSE driven brand, could no longer do PEOPLE, we blindly and hopefully created a PRODUCT that was rooted in the Bird & Bear’s PURPOSE of bringing PEOPLE together, as Birds & Bears, in our similarities and differences, to brave this wilderness. We introduced LOVE BETTER and it’s represented and carried forward the mission of the of the Bird & Bear ever since.

LOVE BETTER, together with YOU Birds & Bears is breaking down barriers, leading with love and inviting every day opportunities to be, do, believe and love better.

The Bird & Bear did not set out to be an apparel company. We didn’t. The journey into product has been very hard. It has stretched us financially, as it’s what propelled us to take the leap into the downtown brick and mortar when we honestly had no business doing it when we did. But seeing this brand out in the wild, shining the message of LOVE has been truly remarkable.

Love Better is more than a in the 3Ps of the B&B pillars of PURPOSE, PEOPLE and PRODUCT and our collective mission to brave this wilderness TOGETHER as we LOVE BETTER.