"The following sentence might make a globalist cry out for joy: A toy that is manufactured by a Chinese company in Vietnamese factories, designed by a Dutch artist in Belgium, inspired by indie toy culture in Hong Kong, and made viral thanks to a Thai K-pop star, has turned into the biggest Gen-Z cultural trend of 2025. That abomination of a sentence is the story of Labubu, the creepy-cute stuffed monster that swept the world this summer."
"Sure, there are always coincidences at work for a success of this scale, but the more I reported on this story, the more I also realized the historical and economic reasons why Labubu, and the toy company behind it, Pop Mart, ended up in this place. In many ways, it resembles other Chinese tech companies that went from counterfeit producers to international name brands, moving up the value chain as they transformed manufacturing experience into valuable technological knowhow."
"The story of Labubu begins in Hong Kong in the 1970s and early '80s, when the city became a manufacturing hub for toys. From Mattel and Disney to Japan's Bandai, almost every major toy company was outsourcing production to factories in Hong Kong, due to the low labor costs there. Howard Lee, the founder of a Hong Kong toy studio called How2Work, told me how that p"
Labubu became the biggest Gen-Z cultural trend of 2025 after a complex global chain of design, manufacturing, and celebrity-driven virality. The toy was manufactured by a Chinese company in Vietnamese factories, designed by a Dutch artist in Belgium, and popularized by a Thai K-pop star. The phenomenon traces back to Hong Kong's 1970s-80s role as a toy manufacturing hub that taught regional firms mass-production expertise. Pop Mart leveraged manufacturing knowledge and market strategy to transition from low-cost production associations toward international branding. The Labubu case parallels other regional cultural exports that achieved global reach through digital platforms and celebrity influence.
Read at WIRED
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