Soft Toys

The history of the soft toy doesn’t go back quite as far as the doll with the first commercial soft toy being made by the German company Steiff in 1880 using new technology which had been designed to make upholstery. In the early 1900s Steiff designed its first soft bear that was made out of a fur like material, at the same time as an American; Morris Michtom made the first teddy bear. Mr Michton decided to design this bear after he saw the US President Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt holding a bear cub. These early teddy bears looked just like real bears, unlike the teddy bears of today which have very cute features to make them more appealing.