Labubu dolls: The craze, the fakes and how to spot them in Australia

This story is part of the September 6 edition of Good Weekend. See all 13 stories .

I stood bewildered by the choice inside the crammed Cabramatta variety store in south-western Sydney last month after asking the sweet shopkeeper if she had any Labubu dolls – the cult accessory of 2025, found hanging off designer handbags – for my four-year-old great-niece’s birthday.

“Ah, Lafufu,” she said, uttering the generic term for fake Labubus before taking me to the back of the store and pulling out dozens of sealed, Labubu-branded boxes. Fakes in official-looking packaging are common. They also feature Labubu’s “blind boxing” strategy, creating a game of chance about which of the 300 dolls is inside. Rare Labubus can sell for hundreds. I wasn’t too concerned that my $15 box contained a Lafu