China is dressing pets and Labubus in Uniqlo palm-sized jacket

What happened A palm-sized puffer jacket was never meant to drive traffic. Yet a miniature coat bundled with Uniqlo’s Pufftech outerwear has unexpectedly detonated across China’s doll-collector and pet-owner communities. What began as a functional accessory — without being sold, advertised, or officially promoted — quickly morphed into a must-have for Labubu owners, cotton-doll collectors, and ball-jointed doll enthusiasts, all racing to outfit their “children” for winter. On social platforms, unboxing posts and outfit reveals spread faster than any paid campaign. Users shared styling hacks, pet adaptations, and playful photo shoots, turning a zero-priced gift into the most visible product in Uniqlo’s winter lineup. Within days of launch, content around the mini jacket flooded Xiaohongshu, where related hashtags surpassed one million views. Crucially, this visibility translated into real purchasing behavior. Users openly documented “reverse buying” logic: purchasing adult or kids’ Pufftech coats purely to secure the gift. On resale platforms, the free mini jacket quickly traded at 50–70 RMB ($6-9), an unusually high secondary-market price for a non-sellable promotional item. In some stores, shoppers reported Pufftech stock-outs while the mini charm became the real object of pursuit. The Jing Take: Emotional value beats functional logic The mini jacket faithfully replicates the adult Pufftech design, complete with functional zippers and padded structure. Small enough to hang from a bag, yet perfectly proportioned for dolls, it escaped the usual fate of branded freebies and became a multi-use object with status value. More importantly, it invites play. Doll collectors dressed characters like Labubu, plush toy owners staged winter scenes, and pet owners adapted the jacket for birds and rodents. Each post felt personal rather than promotional, which is why the content kept circulating instead of burning out. From niche hobby to shared language At its core, the phenomenon reflects a shift in how younger consumers assign value. For Gen Z, dolls and pets are not hobbies but emotional companions. Spending money to keep them warm, styled, and “matching” feels meaningful, even if it requires buying an adult jacket first. That dual satisfaction — self-use plus companion care — reframes the purchase from indulgence to emotional responsibility. Scarcity intensified the effect. As a limited giveaway, the mini jacket triggered urgency and store-hopping behavior, while resale prices validated its desirability within niche circles. Ownership became less about the object itself and more about belonging. A soft lesson in modern marketing For Uniqlo, the outcome was quietly powerful. A low-cost gift generated a wave of creative, unpaid content and gave a functional winter line a warmer, more playful narrative. The mini Pufftech did not win because it tried to sell harder. It won because it gave people something small, charming and emotionally legible — something they genuinely wanted to share. The Jing Take reports on a piece of the leading news and presents our editorial team’s analysis of the key implications for the luxury industry. In the recurring column, we analyze everything from product drops and mergers to heated debate sprouting on Chinese social media.

China is dressing pets and Labubus in palm-sized Uniqlo jackets

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China is dressing pets and Labubus in palm-sized Uniqlo jackets