PRICE MATCHED TO A BIRKIN: The highly limited Sacai x Seventeen Labubu plush toys, a total of 14 lots, fetched as much as $17,000 each on Pharrell Williams‘ auction platform Joopiter after a week of public online bidding.
The Labubus, an exclusive Pop Mart x How2work acid green edition from the Monsters series by the Hong Kong-based artist Kasing Lung, is part of Joopiter’s latest project featuring an auction and limited-edition capsule collection between the Japanese fashion label Sacai and K-pop sensation Seventeen.
Sold in a blind box format, meaning the final bidders won’t know which one they will get beforehand, the lots include 13 Labubu wearing custom beige Sacai x Carhartt WIP looks and a secret version adorned in an undisclosed distinctive colorway.
Sacai x Seventeen Labubus being sold on Joopiter in a blind box format
The final Labubu prices ranged from $17,000 to $11,000, excluding a 25 percent buyer’s premium charged by Joopiter.
The online auction, which coincides with the release of the group’s fifth studio album “Happy Burstday,” is aimed at celebrating Seventeen’s relationship with Sacai and includes pieces worn, signed, and inspired by the group.
In addition to the custom Labubus, the auction includes a Sacai-designed jacket seen in Seventeen’s “Bad Influence” video, which was produced by Williams, and a T-shirt signed by 11 of the group’s members. They were sold for $9,500 and $4,500, respectively.
The rise of Labubu, among other viral IP-based toys and plushies like Jellycat, coincides almost seamlessly with the end of the decade-long global luxury boom.
Pop Mart pop-up inside Harrods.
Courtesy of Pop Mart
The less-affluent, aspirational shoppers who have been largely ignored by the major luxury houses are now finding emotional satisfaction and social cache in these hard-to-get but much more affordable collectibles.
That phenomenon has turbocharged Labubu-maker Pop Mart’s 2024 performance with full-year revenue hitting 13.04 billion renminbi, a 106.9 percent jump.
Net profit in the period soared 185.9 percent to 3.4 billion renminbi. Overseas revenue surged 375.2 percent to 5.07 billion renminbi, accounting for 38.9 percent of total revenue.
Revenue from Labubu and The Monsters series climbed a whopping 726.6 percent year-over-year, becoming the company’s top-performing intellectual property.
The share price of the Hong Kong-listed Pop Mart has more than quadrupled in the past year, with a current market capitalization of over 366 billion Hong Kong dollars, or $46.63 billion, more than double that of Kering’s.
The art world is taking a second look at Labubu, too.
Last week, a human-sized Labubu figurine was sold for 1.08 million renminbi, or $150,275, in Beijing, setting a new record for the fluffy figurine with a grin of spikey teeth.