Labubu Have Infiltrated Hollywood
If you don’t yet know what Labubu is, after you read this, you’ll start noticing them everywhere. And if you do know Labubu, then you’ve already clocked it everywhere because they’re standing on business. These furry bag charms, which are not quite the size of key chains and more the size of tennis balls, have sprouted up all over, seemingly overnight. At first, they accompanied the usual suspects: lunchbox loiterers, middle-school commuters, young adults whose vapes have games on them. But then Labubu was spotted on designer bags in street-style photos at Paris Fashion Week. Suddenly, Labubu is protesting ICE. Some even got papped on the arms of A-list celebrities ranging from Dua Lipa to Cher to Rihanna. Bethenny Frankel is posting about her Labubu, as is Oscar-winning actress Michelle Yeoh. Emma Roberts is obsessed. It’s not just for girls, either. Labubu are a hypebeast-friendly fad, well-liked by athletes like Dillon Brooks and David Beckham. Labubu’s earliest mega-celeb spokesperson was Blackpink singer Lisa, ahead of the trend as always back in 2024. More than Jellycat, more than Sonny Angel, Labubu is a collectible toy fad of the 2020s that’s crossing over into the realms of celebrity, fashion, and general pop culture at an exponential scale as sales and visibility boom. Will the entertainment world pounce on the opportunity to make Labubu-themed games or shows? A Labubu movie?
The other week I sat down on the subway next to a very put-together, sophisticated-looking, Sebald-reading man on the subway, with the Labubu attached to his black purse giving me a death stare. Later that week in Flushing, I saw a slow-moving line outside of PopMart wind halfway through the Tangram Mall. A guy had a folding table set out in front of him, selling little knit clothes and accessories for your Labubu. This all seemed ridiculous, but the more I delved into Labubu creator Kasing Lung’s Instagram and tried to unpack Labubu lore, the more charmed I became. Charmed enough to buy a bag charm for $370 on StockX? Honey, I don’t have a bag nice enough to be worthy of Labubu.
First off, what is a Labubu?
Labubu looks like an evil toddler in a bunny suit, with a peachy vinyl face and hands and feet poking out of cuddly furry swaddling. The Labubu we are talking about here — the ones that are a true sensation — are plush keychains that measure around six inches tall. Labubu also come in other forms: You can get an even-smaller Labubu for your Labubu, or a large vinyl figure for $170,000. Labubu is a type of monster that is also an elf, they are mischievous, playful, and friendly. Despite being a monster-elf, all signs point to Labubu being a Christian, as Labubu celebrates Christmas. All Labubu are she/her. I have seen different approaches to the grammar of Labubu, but the cleanest and most fun to say is that the plural of Labubu is Labubu.
They’re all girls?
Yes, devilish little she/hers liberated from Hello Kitty ribbon-and-bow girly girl-ness. Labubu look androgynous and come in a variety of colors and outfits, with big furrowed Neanderthal brows and pointy overbites. But maybe they’re sometimes boys.
Huh?
In most official materials, it’s made explicit that Labubu is female. But in an interview with Hypebeast in 2024, the interviewer and Lung consistently refer to the character of Labubu with he/him pronouns. Clearly, this means Labubu is a nonbinary icon.
Is Labubu one person or a species of Labubu?
Both. Labubu is referred to as a character a lot of the time, and she has the traits and lore of an individual, for example, she has a boyfriend who is a skull. But within a series of Labubu such as the “Have a Seat” collection of plush, they are all hanging out at the beach together and have different names: Sisi, Hehe, Baba, Zizi, Qugu, Dada, and Duoduo. But they are all Labubu. Some of these Labubu have eyelashes, others don’t, implying a spectrum of butch to femme Labubu.
Who is responsible for this?
Labubu is the creation of Hong Kong–born, Netherlands-raised, Belgium-based artist and illustrator Kasing Lung. Lung has been doodling, painting, and crafting variations on Labubu as part of his “The Monsters” series of books and artworks since 2015. That makes Labubu ten years old this year! You can see Lung’s intercontinental upbringing on display in the unique aesthetics of Labubu: They look like they could have stepped out of a Moomin cartoon but also resemble the impish creations of Yoshitomo Nara, with the corporate pop-art vibes of a Takashi Murakami. One of the clearest points of reference for Labubu, however, is Maurice Sendak’s illustrations for Where the Wild Things Are, looking like an amalgam of the monsters and Max in his furry footie pajamas. Lung has styled Labubu as a Sendak character on multiple occasions.
So, Labubu is a character from a book.
Yes, although good luck finding a copy. Over 100 Labubu appear as “part of the background and side characters hiding behind trees or under chairs” in Lung’s first picture book, The Story of Puka, published in Taiwan in 2015. They cropped up again in follow-up books, 2016’s Pato and the Girl and 2017’s Miro’s Requiem. From what I can gather, Labubu isn’t consequential to the stories themselves, although it’s difficult to tell for sure, because only a few pages of the books have been posted online and the individual picture books (as well as their 2021 Monsters Trilogy compilation volume) are difficult to find for purchase.
The pages of the books that have been made public show lovely black-and-white hand-drawn illustrations of forests, trees, mountains, and an ocean. On one page, the text reads, “After playing every day, Mr. Bagpipes dragged back home with fatigue,” and shows the aforementioned Mr. Bagpipes walk down a wooded path with a mouse and a bear while Labubu lurks behind a tree. Another page shows a Labubu among a whole grouping of fiendish monsters surrounding a character called “the Master of Magic.” These glimpses into Labubu within her proper narrative context raise way more questions than they provide answers. One redditor suggested that there hasn’t been a reprint or international printing of the Trilogy because Pop Mart acquired the licensing to Lung’s Monsters in 2019.
Lung has said that Labubu and the other monsters are inspired by Nordic folklore. This isn’t the first time that forest-dwelling creatures inspired by Nordic folklore have become a global pop-culture sensation in the form of collectible hairy figurines that are grotesque and cute at the same time. This is Troll-doll mania all over again!
Are there any other non-Labubu characters in the Labubu-verse?
There certainly are! They all live in the forest. I really wish there was a flash-animated site where you could explore the forest and discover all of the characters with their official bios, but Labubu only exists online in any official capacity in the Pop Mart store. Anyway, in addition to her skull-boyfriend, Tycoco, there are Zimomo and Mokoko, who look almost exactly like Labubu, if you want to hop on the trend but be alt.
Is there Labubu backlash and controversy?
These mischievous little elves have caused a fair amount of scandal and discourse online during their skyrocketing rise to superstardom, so much so that they might be a force for evil in the world. There have been many reported incidents of Labubu-based crime, such as a car being smashed into for three Labubu, an Orange County makeup store being robbed for its Labubu, a claw machine clawed apart in Singapore. Labubu getting snatched off of purses, and Gen-Zers getting Labubu insured. In April, thieves stole £150,000 worth of Labubu off a truck in the U.K. Brawls are breaking out over Labubu. And negative Labubu hot takes are on the rise, as countless creators call Labubu a recession indicator. Plus, lots of people just find Labubu to be uggo.
Okay, I like this. Where can I buy a Labubu?
Labubu is officially licensed and sold by Pop Mart, the Chinese collectibles retailer with over 500 stores and 2,300 “ROBOSHOP” vending machines in over 30 countries, including a store in the Louvre. Surging on the success of Labubu, Pop Mart founder Wang Ning recently became the tenth-richest billionaire in China. Like the Sonny Angel craze of last year, Labubu are sold as blind boxes, meaning you don’t know which Labubu from a series you’ll get when you buy one, encouraging collectors to buy and trade multiple Labubu in the hopes of snagging the one they want. According to a great Labubu buying guide from the Strategist’s Liza Corsillo, “Many of the Pop Mart stores don’t sell Labubu blind boxes IRL because of the chaos that drops have caused in the past.” You can also buy them through the Pop Mart app or online, but a lot of Labubu purchasing happens through the secondhand market, sometimes on normally fashion-focused websites like Stock X. Here, fans pay hundreds of dollars to guarantee they’re getting the Labubu that their heart desires.
Who is Lafufu?
“Lafufu” refers to any bootleg Labubu.
What else can we expect from Labubu this year?
Kasing Lung has said that he’s working on another Labubu picture book to come out later this year in conjunction with the creature’s tenth anniversary. He’s teased visuals from it on his Instagram.
Who’s coming for Labubu’s crown?
On the r/PopMartCollectors sub-Reddit, I’m seeing a lot of talk about the chain’s Twinkle Twinkle, Skull Panda, and Cry Baby lines of little plastic cutesy figurines, any of which could pop off as the next big blind-box toy. Vulture writer Alejandra Gularte is partial to Molly collectibles, also from a Hong Kong artist, Kenny Wong. Additionally, I think Disney is going to try to come for this wearable-collectible-accessory craze in a huge way. The corporation already has a line of fuzzy Labubu-style keychains at Pop Mart that appeared to sell out quickly this February. Stitch-mania is bigger than ever, and Disney already has all kinds of Stitch diffusion lines at other blind-box shops like Miniso. Disney has had its share of Labubu-style crazes in its overseas Asian parks with original characters like Duffy and plush lines like TsumTsums. Disney fans are already notorious collectors of wearables, from trading pins to LoungeFly backpacks; I’d expect them to come out with a must-have big fluffy blind-box bag charm for people’s LoungeFlys. The most disturbing Disney Adult trend I’ve seen that might finally merge the two somewhat-overlapping fandoms further has occurred over the past few days on TikTok: The theme parks are now selling $29.99 mini versions of their collectible popcorn buckets that are perfectly sized for your Labubu, who is possibly already clipped onto your collectible popcorn bucket, to wear. They are collectibles for your collectibles clipped to your collectibles. Money printer go brrrrr, landfill go “yummmm,” we all go “awwww!”
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