Reflections | Ancient China’s Labubu-like doll craze also saw fans splurge silly money on the toys
Mohele dolls featured expensive ‘special editions’, saw designer collaborations and even inspired cosplay, much like Labubus today
You must have seen Labubu dolls – those furry, razor-toothed monsters that come in an array of colours and hang from every third person’s bag – though perhaps you do so less frequently now than in 2024.
I suppose they are cute, a momentary distraction from the fraught world we live in, but for many, these charming critters serve another, humourless purpose: they are investments.
Their manufacturer, Pop Mart, uses a “blind box” mechanism and limited releases to create artificial scarcity and excitement, which in turn drives up demand and prices.
Because of their investment potential, many Labubus are not played with in the way dolls usually are. Instead, they are interred in transparent display cases, hermetically sealed from contaminants that may undermine their resale value. I have even seen individual Labubus hanging from handbags in clear, purpose-made boxes, like bodies entombed in plastic caskets.