Labubu craze grows in Barcelona with second store opening

The craze for Labubu dolls — little monsters that are objectively ugly and terrifying, yet inexplicably endearing and adorable at the same time — has taken Barcelona by storm this summer, and it could well transform the commercial fabric of the city center. These dolls and their sister collections are mainly sold in blind boxes (no one knows which one they are buying) and for prices ranging from €15 ($17,50) to €1,200 ($1405).

Barcelona was already the only city in Spain with official stores selling these little monsters, and as of this Friday, it is one of the few European capitals with two stores open at the same time.

Last July, Pop Mart, the company that sells them, opened a store in the heart of the Catalan capital: in Portal de l’Àngel. Several weeks have passed since then, and there are still daily lines of shoppers willing to dig deep into their pockets in exchange for the Asian-style dolls.

The business surrounding this geek phenomenon has taken over the center of the Catalan capital to such an extent — until now, anime, manga and geek culture were confined to a very specific area of town located around the Arc de Triomf, or else in the Galerias Maldà — that Pop Mart on Friday opened a Labubu boutique in the downtown shopping center El Triangle. The reaction has been identical. The surrounding streets woke up to an endless line of diehard fans willing to dig deep into their pockets in search of Labubu dolls.

Susana and Costin (many buyers of this type of item have chosen to change their names) are from Alicante, further south along the Mediterranea coast, and came to Barcelona to go to Port Aventura, the amusement park.

“We took a break the other day to come to the Portal de l’Àngel store, and this morning we did it again to rush to this store,” admits Susana. When they arrived, with the doors still closed, they encountered dozens of people who had spent the night in line. “These are people who buy to make an investment and then resell on the internet,” explains Costin.

The resale of these dolls is so obvious that even the store’s security guards make sure that those who have just bought them don’t try to make money off those who have been waiting in line for hours. “We are Chinese, but we all live in Barcelona,” say half a dozen young descendants of Asian immigrants who have just bought toys worth €250 each. They gather bags full of boxes on the sidewalk on Pelai Street and start taking photos until the security guards think they are going to resell them and ask them to step out of the line.

Each buyer spends an average of €150 ($175) to €200 ($234), and such is the craze for these monsters that many dolls have purchase limits or restrictions to prevent buyers from hoarding toys. In fact, some dolls are limited to one per person.

Andrea Llanos is one of the shoppers who has been lining up since very early in the morning. She has bought several boxes but came prepared to buy a giant Molly (this is a more refined doll with a pretty, almost silly appearance). She was running late for work at a fast-food chain, while she continued to discuss, at the checkout, the purchase of a doll valued at €1,200 ($1400), initially as a gift for her boyfriend. “I was willing, but I didn’t buy it because that model doesn’t come in a closed box,” says Llanos, with the words of someone thinking about an investment.

Begoña Campillo is 33 years old, works as a programmer, and has managed to drag her mother from Rubí (Barcelona) to stand in line for a few hours. Campillo wants to buy several Skullpandas, dolls that are more angelical-looking. Pop Mart fans know that Skullpanda buyers don’t buy Labubu dolls (and, according to them, vice versa), but Campillo is the exception. “The novelty of this store is the Skullpandas, and I’ve come to buy them,” she says, smiling with a box (it’s not clear what she’s buying) in her bag. In fact, Campillo was the last customer to be able to buy these dolls on Friday because they sold out in just a few hours.

Alexia and Mati have disability cards. They show them to the security guard. The store has a policy that those who present this documentation can skip the line. Each of them spends €200 on dolls. They have been inside the store for seven minutes. They knew what they wanted to buy.

Mari leaves with a giant bag containing a Zimomo. According to the experts in the line, this is the only male Labubu, since — for those who don’t know —these monsters are mostly female, despite not having any physical characteristics to distinguish them. The Zimomo is male and can be distinguished by what appears to be its spine ending in a tail. Mari has come from the town of Granollers, 20 miles (33km) away: “I’ve already gotten deep into this world, but this Zimomo is for my daughter.” She smiles despite having spent hours in line and spent more than €200. This weekend, a flood of buyers is expected at the new Labubu monster store in Barcelona.

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