#Labubu is the hashtag for Pop Mart’s ugly-cute pointed-eared designer plush toy — a blind-box collectible that spent 2025 and 2026 colonizing TikTok on the strength of celebrity handbag clip-ons, unboxing ASMR, and authentication drama, surpassing 100 million units sold by the end of 2025 and pulling designer-toy culture fully into the mainstream.
Quick Facts
- Company: Pop Mart (China)
- Designer: Kasing Lung (“The Monsters” character line)
- Format: Blind-box plush, typically bag-charm sized
- Units sold: 100 million+ (2025 milestone)
- Peak platform: TikTok (also Instagram, YouTube)
- Notable celebrity adopters: Lisa (BLACKPINK), Rihanna, Dua Lipa
Origin
Labubu began as a character in Kasing Lung’s “The Monsters” universe — a set of Nordic-folklore-inspired characters that Pop Mart began producing as designer toys and blind-box plush in the late 2010s and early 2020s. The design — pointed ears, wide toothy grin, saucer eyes — sits squarely in the “ugly-cute” tradition that has been reliable in Asian designer-toy culture for years. What was novel in 2025 was the rate at which mainstream Western audiences adopted it.
Business Model
Pop Mart sells Labubus primarily through blind boxes — the buyer doesn’t know which figure they’ll get until they open it — with rarity tiers that make certain colors, seasons, or collaborations dramatically more valuable on the resale market. That mechanic is what makes the unboxing video work as content: every open is a gamble with visible stakes. The blind-box format also drives repeat purchase in a way ordinary plush toys don’t.
How It Blew Up on TikTok
The Labubu boom is a case study in “stacked” viral mechanics. In one product, TikTok gets: (1) blind-box gambling drama, (2) ASMR-friendly unpacking sound, (3) fashion-flex utility as a bag charm, (4) rarity/scarcity narrative around specific colors and drops, and (5) authentication content — is this Labubu real or a “Lafufu” counterfeit. Creators can film any one of those angles and clear a million views. Campaign’s write-up on the toy’s rise called the mechanic-stacking the single most durable creator-economy phenomenon of 2026.
Celebrity Adoption
Lisa from BLACKPINK, Rihanna, and Dua Lipa clipping Labubus to their handbags accelerated the toy from Asian designer-toy culture into global fashion feeds. Campaign, Athlon, and Yahoo Finance all traced the 2025-into-2026 pivot from niche collector object to celebrity accessory. By early 2026, Labubu-branded handbag charms had become one of the most-searched celebrity fashion items on lifestyle blogs.
Knockoffs & Dupes
Counterfeits — sometimes called “Lafufus” — have become their own subgenre of Labubu content, with authentication accounts on TikTok and Instagram accumulating followings by pointing out subtle differences in stitching, tag placement, and packaging. The dupe economy is itself part of the trend’s staying power: the drama of “is it real” gives the community something to argue about between drops.
Legacy
Industry write-ups debate whether Labubu has hit peak. Campaign and Athlon frame mid-2026 as the transition from spike to plateau — a stable, high-value collector market rather than a flash trend — while nss magazine and Firstpost track the emergence of successor viral toys like Mirumi. Either way, Labubu is now a fixture of the 2025-and-after designer-toy conversation and one of the defining collectibles of the decade.
Variations & Related Tags
The trend circulated as #Labubu, #LabubuTok, and #LabubuBagCharm. See also #PopMart and #BlindBox for the broader designer-toy category.
Sources
- https://www.campaignlive.com/article/reached-peak-labubu-charting-rise-fall-ugly-cute-viral-toy/1948309
- https://www.opus.pro/blog/labubu-trend
- https://popboxss.com/blogs/d41d8cd9-8f00b204-e9800998-ecf8427e_fc986fb9
- https://athlonsports.com/collectibles/labubu-legacy-peak-hype-lasting-trend-2026
- https://finance.yahoo.com/news/labubus-legacy-peak-hype-lasting-193247602.html
- https://www.nssmag.com/en/fashion/43899/fashion-trends-2026-after-labubu