Paris Hilton, T-Mobile, and a Trendy Toy Company Go to Times Square
If you want thIS doll, you better get to New York City. Or Alderwood Mall.
A collaboration I didn’t see coming. 📸 Baby 3 (Dongguan, China) x T-Mobile (Bellevue, USA)
⏰ Wed, Dec 10, 2025 @ 11:30 AM PST
🐟 Published from Seattle, USA
🔨 Built by Chase Burns Broderick
On Thursday, Labubu floated down the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. On Friday, Labubu tumbled on Wall Street.
That’s the now-accepted story of what happened during the final week of November for Pop Mart in America.
Pop Mart’s run-up into Black Friday and the slide that followed.
There are, as the finance stories keep repeating, “market concerns” that Pop Mart’s Black Friday sales in the States didn’t live up to expectations. Some analysts now expect U.S. sales this quarter to grow by around 500 percent year-over-year—which would be a reason to party if earlier forecasts hadn’t been closer to 1,200 percent. That gap is what the stock is really reacting to.
The actual numbers will land much later, but stocks move on changing expectations, not finalized receipts.
While Pop Mart’s strategy, or at least the way it talks to investors, may need a retuning, there’s another trendy toy company coming out of the same Dongguan art-toy ecosystem that’s suddenly everywhere I look.
Lately it’s been Baby Three, not Labubu, getting held up to the camera.
Baby Three quietly hitchhiking on an Urban Outfitters holiday promo.
Just the past few months: Urban Outfitters introduced multiple Baby Three blind-box plush lines in the U.S. and U.K., Baby Three announced a crossover with revived U.K. horror teddy brand Werebears, and now a unique T-Mobile collab—with upcoming Times Square (NYC) and Alderwood Mall (Lynnwood, Washington) drop events—already worn by Paris Hilton. (Clearly, trendy toys are on Paris’ mind.)
Baby Three’s “No Filter Series” for T-Mobile: a full squad of magenta-coded bunnies in streetwear, varsity caps, and branded hoodies.
Why is an American telecommunications company teaming up with a Chinese trendy toy company?
Baby Three belongs to Cureplaneta, a blind-box brand under Da Piaoliang (literally “Big Beautiful”) Toy Co. The company’s factory base sits in Dongguan, although from my vantage point, the toy has seen more attention overseas—in places like Vietnam and now the United States—than in mainland China.
Uniquely, it’s a plush brand built around the face, not the outfit (although the outfits are important, too). Every doll technically has a “costume,” but the real hit is the randomized face plate. Sometimes, users pull a doll with crying eyes. Other times, they get “boba eyes” (little black eyes that move). The cheek tattoos, facial expressions, and hair “gems” also vary. These variables increase the doll’s “playability.”
Officially, Cureplaneta has handed the keys to Baby Three’s Western expansion to two middlemen—UCC Distributing for US/CA/MX/EU and Kandy Toys for UK—and in the span of a year that network has pushed the bunny from SDCC exclusives and indie toy shops into Target aisles, Urban Outfitters gift walls, a UK horror-teddy crossover, and a T-Mobile membership collab fronted by Paris Hilton.
In the brand’s newly announced collaboration with T-Mobile—based in Bellevue, Seattle’s business-minded sister city—the official talking point is magenta, T-Mobile’s signature color. But the doll set’s throwback palette and styling feel straight out of the mid-2000s, when flip phones were at their cultural peak. And pairing the little pets with Paris Hilton, a central figure of that era, makes it clear that T-Mobile is trying to stage a culture play with this collab.
Where to Get the T-Mobile × Baby Three Limited-Edition Plush Collab
If you actually want one of these bunnies, the rules are pretty simple and very telecom, per the press release.
When
Date: Saturday, Dec. 13
Time: 11 AM – 5 PM local time (at both locations)
Where
New York City – Times Square Signature Store
1535 Broadway, Ste 0161A, New York, NYGreater Seattle – Alderwood Mall Store
3000 184th St SW #522, Lynnwood, WA
Who it’s for
T-Mobile members can line up at in-store vending machines to buy the collab blind boxes.
How it works
Each blind box costs $25 (tax included).
Each box contains one of eight unique Baby Three plushies in the “No Filter Series”.
It’s while supplies last, so this is very much a first-come, first-served situation.
What’s happening in the stores
Both locations are doing a full Baby Three takeover with oversized photo moments.
There are customizable case giveaways to “keep the plushies safe on every adventure,” i.e., extra branded merch.
Times Square bonus
At the Times Square store only, Paris Hilton is scheduled to appear and do the “even stars need a plush BFF” meet-and-greet portion of the program.
