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Stella Huang purchased her initial Jellycat cuddly companion in the midst of a time of job loss in the pandemic. Encouraged by a friend's fondness for these British-designed creatures, her curiosity was fully captured upon seeing an adorable gingerbread cottage design featured on a major social networking app.

While The Christmas holiday is not traditionally observed across China, serving more as a commercial event than a religious festival, the imagery of festive cottages appealed to Stella. "The festival doesn't mean a lot to me... But I have always loved the appearance of those sweet houses," she explains. This led her to request a friend from her hometown to purchase it for her.

That acquisition was made back in 2021, coinciding with Jellycat was on the cusp to achieve significant popularity in China and internationally. "Everyone felt jittery, and nobody knew what exactly was going to happen," recalls Stella, who picked up a habit of petting and hugging her soft toys to cope during that stressful time. Living in Beijing, a city with some of the strictest lockdowns in the world, she passed extended periods indoors.

Now 32 with a new job as a sales manager professional, Stella continues to expand her collection. Her collection has grown to approximately 120 toys, representing a cost of about 36,000 yuan. "At my age, there are many things that you cannot share with other people... and the problems we encounter are far more complicated than in the past," she notes with a sigh. "The plushies assist me in regulate my emotions."

Initially created with kids in mind, these soft toys have become a global phenomenon, especially within China where a somewhat disillusioned younger generation has been turning to them as a source of emotional support.

Understanding the Kidults

Stella's gingerbread cottage toy is part of their "Amuseables" collection, a range of characters with tiny faces inspired by commonplace inanimate objects, from bathroom tissue to boiled eggs. These toys are considered the "standout success" that "resonate with a wide Gen-Z and millennial audience" around the world, according to market observers.

The surge in popularity "may have a connection to wanting for a sense of connection," propose experts. It is hard to say for sure whether the introduction of the now-iconic series in 2018 was a deliberate move to target the young adult consumer, companies in the sector increasingly need to cultivate new markets due to declining birth rates across numerous parts of the world.

The brand made its foray into China as early as 2015. By laying significant "foundation", the toy maker was well-positioned to tap into "the mood of the pandemic"—a time when individuals looked for solace during heightened uncertainty—and built on this success there, as explained by industry experts.

Jellycat's popularity was also boosted through creative pop-up experiences. These retail events sometimes offered a menu of limited-edition "culinary" products. Many fans record their experience interacting and post the clips online.

Adaptation to local tastes proved to be a core approach. For instance, fans were able to buy stuffed toy interpretations of traditional UK dishes like fish, chips and mushy peas at a pop-up overseas. Conversely, items like teapot and teacup plushies were sold at exclusive stores in Beijing and Shanghai last year.

In 2024, the British firm's sales is said to have increased by two-thirds to an impressive sum. In that timeframe, it sold roughly $117 million in value of toys to Chinese consumers via leading e-commerce platforms, per market intelligence estimates.

This growth parallels a broader boom in China's collectible toy sector driven by adult consumers seeking emotional comfort and community. Total revenue of collectable toys nationally are projected to top 110 billion yuan this year, according to a recent industry report.

The remarkable popularity of brands like Labubu, elf-like dolls from Chinese toy maker Pop Mart, highlights the market's growing appetite towards collectable toys. This "adult-child" phenomenon isn't unique to China; young adults globally are starting to re-evaluate "traditional notions of adulthood," observe cultural experts.

Particularly, items like the eggplant character—affectionately dubbed "the big boss" in China—have spawned a wave of online jokes, where users sharing frustrations about the pressures of adulthood. On social media, the "eggplant boss" tag is a space where people draw various emotive faces on their toy, depicting it in different states from drinking to forcing a smile.

For example, one Hong Kong-based, Wendy Hui, modified her aubergine Amuseable by drawing bags around its eyes and placing a pair of glasses on the toy. She posted an image online captioning it: "The mental state of employees at the start of the week." "I kept working from home even on time off," the 30-something says. "I just wanted to express the level of exhaustion I was."

Thus, Jellycat has become an unexpected, light-hearted outlet for young Chinese to air their grievances about economic challenges, where hard work no longer guarantee comparable rewards. Amid strict online censorship, the internet remains an important, perhaps the primary, space for such discussions.

The brand's regular launches of limited-edition designs and the retirement of older designs—an approach often called "hunger marketing" locally—has further fueled {