Hands, not assembly lines
Every face is embroidered and trimmed by one person, start to finish, so the two eyes always sit level.
Our story
A small studio that grew a waiting list.
GentleFur started with one fursuit commission in 2016 and a sewing machine borrowed from a grandmother. Ten years later the machine is bigger, the cat is older, and the waiting list has never quite cleared.
How we got here
Our founder grew up making plush from offcuts, then spent four years in costume workshops learning the unglamorous parts of the trade: pattern grading, seam allowance, and how to keep faux fur out of every other machine in the building.
When a friend asked for a fursuit head that did not look like a taxidermy project, the answer was a rounder, softer silhouette with an embroidered face — and a queue that formed by word of mouth. We did not set out to sell plush. Customers simply kept asking to buy the samples sitting on the bench.
Today the studio runs on two industrial machines, a fur blender that makes an alarming amount of noise, and a rule that nothing leaves the building until it has been photographed in daylight and checked against its own measurements.
How we work
Four rules we do not bend
They cost us margin, and they are the reason customers come back.
Fur we would keep
We buy in full bolts and hand-pick for pile depth and colourfastness. If it fails our wash test, it never reaches the shop.
Repairable by design
Stitched seams, replaceable joints and no glue where a thread will do — so a repair in 2031 is still possible.
Small batches, honest stock
Fur lots change, so we sell in small runs and tell you the real remaining count instead of backfilling from a warehouse.
The process
From bolt of fur to parcel
Roughly nine days of work per plush, spread across four stages.
- 01
Draft & grade
Patterns are drawn by hand, graded for the size, then tested in calico before any fur is cut.
- 02
Cut & sew
Fur is cut one direction only so the pile falls together, then seamed inside out on an industrial machine.
- 03
Face & fill
Eyes and nose are embroidered, the body is stuffed with recycled fibre and weighted with glass beads.
- 04
Check & pack
Measured, photographed and brushed. Wrapped in tissue with a care card, then into a rigid mailer.
By the numbers
Ten years, kept deliberately small.
We could grow faster. We have been asked. Every time we modelled a bigger run, the answer was fewer hands on each piece — so we stayed here, with the same three people on the bench.
- 1,200+
- plush finished
- 34
- countries shipped
- 4.8★
- average review
- 2 yrs
- free repairs
