Labubu, soft power of a stealthy ‘ugly-cute' sort, takes on America
Advertisement
Eventually, after several attempts, she managed to secure a couple of Labubus, relishing the 'blind box' surprise of not knowing which Labubu character was inside.
'A lot of the fun is how hard they are to get,' said Schmauch, aged 28. 'I was lucky enough to get two. It's kind of fun not knowing what you're going to get.'
The global Labubu hysteria has sparked long queues, online mania, customer fist-fights and explosive revenue growth for the Chinese retailer Pop Mart, which had some US$423 million in global Labubu sales alone on overall revenue of US$1.8 billion last year.
Priced in the United States at around US$30 apiece, rare varieties of the doll can resell for thousands of dollars; last month, an
auction in Beijing saw a singular Labubu go for US$172,000.
Advertisement
For decades, China has manufactured most of the world's toys, including such past must-haves as Beanie Babies, Tamagotchi and Fidget Spinners. But this is among its first home-grown global megahits, with 40 per cent of Labubu's sales coming from outside China.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
South China Morning Post
7 hours ago
- South China Morning Post
This week in PostMag: Hello Kitty creator Sanrio and a South African safari
One of the first things I ever loved was a Hello Kitty diary. Yes, there were stuffed animals (Snuffy the bear, RIP), sticker books and an American Girl doll or two, but it's the red Sanrio diary from 1993 that's somehow become a core memory. The lock, shaped like Hello Kitty's head, was cute but flimsy at best. Inside? Kindergarten confessionals, scrawled in shaky handwriting and even shakier grammar. Seeing a vintage Hello Kitty diary brings back memories for PostMag editor Cat Nelson. Photo: Etsy Things escalated in Grade 2 when Miki moved from Japan to our sleepy California town. With her came a parallel universe of pencil cases, stickers and characters beyond anything our Lisa Frank-addled brains had seen. Keroppi erasers, Badtz-Maru mechanical pencils, pastel My Melody folders. Sanrio wasn't just cute, and it wasn't just a toy company. It was as aspirational and worldly as an eight-year-old could get. So it's no wonder I devoured Sumnima Kandangwa's cover story this week, which explores Sanrio's staying power across generations . She charts the company's shape-shifting fandom, from a collector with a 1,000-piece Hello Kitty stash to Zoomers swearing allegiance to Kuromi's soft-punk aesthetic. And these characters aren't just merch. I was struck by this as our photographer, Jocelyn Tam, and I worked on the images for this piece. One young woman we photographed felt compelled to tell us, unprompted, that it might be a Hello Kitty charm hanging off her bag, but only because it was limited edition and her friends convinced her. Her real favourite is Kuromi. They may be cartoons, but loyalties run deep. Elsewhere, Bernice Chan profiles Aqua founder David Yeo, who started out cooking for friends in his Hong Kong flat and somehow ended up with a 25-year-old international restaurant empire. He's the kind of obsessive who can, apparently, taste the seasonal shift in a bag of rice. I'm impressed. And then there's the Karoo. Mark Eveleigh heads to South Africa's semi-arid desert for a walking safari, which is not something I plan to do any time soon but greatly enjoyed reading about. It's part travelogue, part nature thriller – lions, rewilding, the return of springbok. I thought of our Yellowstone feature from a few issues back and how the park has brought back nearly extinct wolves. Both reminders that not everything that disappears stays gone. While you might not find me on the Karoo any time soon, you may run into me at Montana. Associate editor Gavin Yeung chats with bartenders Lorenzo Antinori (Bar Leone) and Simone Caporale (Barcelona's Sips) about their new cocktail outpost on Hollywood Road. It's a throwback to 1970s and 80s Cuban culture – and it sounds delightful. See you there for a drink? Finally, August looms. Hong Kong might not stage a full European-style exodus, but the city does slip into silent mode and we're pausing issues on August 3, 17 and 31. That said, we're not very good at staying away. You can always find us online, and we'll be back on August 10 and 24 in print. I'm looking forward to it already.
South China Morning Post
a day ago
- South China Morning Post
How Olympian Jeff Galloway is still running marathons at 80 as he trains for his 237th
Jeff Galloway tends to be pretty low-key about birthdays, but on July 12 this year, things were decidedly different: the inspirational American Olympian runner turned 80. 'I guess this year, because it had a zero on the end, I got a lot of nice messages – a few thousand actually,' he laughs from his home in Florida, where he lives with his wife of 50 years, Barb, who shares his passion for running. To say Galloway has had a positive impact on the take-up of competitive running would be an understatement. He pioneered the Run-Walk-Run method in 1974 – known informally as 'Jeffing' – a training style that involves strategic, small walk breaks to allow runners to manage fatigue and avoid injury. The method has made finishing a distance event accessible to almost everyone. More than a million runners and walkers have read Galloway's books, attended his retreats and running schools, or had online coaching. Jeff Galloway introduces a group of runners to his Run-Walk-Run method. Photo: Jeff Galloway Anyone can start endurance training with this method, whatever their age, Galloway believes. One of his proudest achievements was getting his then heavily overweight father, Elliott, into running using this method.
South China Morning Post
a day ago
- South China Morning Post
Labubu dolls boost Chinese toy doctors' businesses, with 1 fixing 100 in a month
The craze for the plush Chinese toy Labubu has boosted the careers of so-called toy doctors in China. A Shanghai 'toy doctor' nicknamed Heartman said he had fixed 100 Labubu toys in the past month and had to ask his wife to help and move to a bigger studio. He said repairs were 10 per cent of the price of the toy, which is considered fair because an ordinary Labubu toy retails at 99 yuan (US$14). Under repair: A 'toy doctor' sets about fixing one of the hugely popular creations. Photo: Douyin However, they sell for hundreds of yuan on the second-hand market. Rare versions can cost thousands of yuan. Labubu is a character of The Monsters family created by Hong Kong artist Kasing Lung. Chinese toymaker Pop Mart began working with Lung in 2019. Last year, The Monsters series became Pop Mart's most popular series, seeing a 726.6 per cent increase in revenue that reached 3.04 billion yuan. One of the reasons behind the craze is K-pop group Blackpink's member Lisa, who expressed her love for the toy. Another reason, according to Pop Mart's investor Wei Zhe, is the toy's portability.
