From UK · Japan · Taiwan · Korea

The finds Britain has not met.

Cute with teeth.

What this is

A shop with a point of view, not a shelf of whatever shipped.

British character retail is either a sweet gift shop or one enormous own-brand hype machine. Neither of them will sell you a Taiwanese illustrator's acrylic, because neither of them has gone looking.

What is on the shelf comes from makers and studios across Japan, Taiwan and Korea, and from our own drawing table in Britain. The country goes on the front of the card because it is the interesting part - a Taipei illustrator's acrylic and a Tokyo capsule charm are not the same object and should not be sold as though they were.

The Lucky Box seen from a three-quarter angle, lid off, a plush and a poster tube inside.

The flagship

£30 in. £40 of goods out, stated before you pay.

Box Day · three themes · from £30

Every box states the minimum value of its contents at our own single-item prices, before you pay, and if one ever comes in under that number we make the difference up in goods you choose. The part you get to discover is which finds are inside.

How the Lucky Box works

Where it comes from

Origin is the label, not the small print.

If we cannot say where a thing came from, we do not carry it. Every product page names the maker or the studio behind the piece, and the country it came out of.

What we carry

Four things every piece on this shelf has.

Scroll. The bear is taking the long way round.

  1. 01 A maker with a name - the illustrator, the studio or the house that drew it, printed on the card that comes with it.
  2. 02 A country on the front of the label, because where a thing is from is part of what it is.
  3. 03 A character worth living with. A face with an opinion, not a smile drawn to shift units.
  4. 04 A finish that survives being handled. Cute is the easy half of this.

The flagship

Box Day.

Box Day is when the boxes go out. The Lucky Box is what is in one: a curated box of finds with the minimum value of its contents printed next to the price, at our own single-item prices.

A fixed price, named categories and a number we stand behind - if a box ever comes in under it, we make the difference up in goods you choose.

How the box works

From Taiwan

The From Taiwan Box

Taiwanese illustrators and character makers, in a box nobody else in Britain is putting together.

£30

You pay

£40+

Stated minimum value inside

What is inside

  • An acrylic piece by an illustrator with a real following in Taipei
  • A beaded phone charm strung by hand
  • Sticker flakes and a sack to keep them in
  • A snack from a Taiwanese maker worth knowing about
  • A piece of Taiwanese design stationery

Every box holds at least £40 of goods at our own single-item prices. Taiwanese character goods have no home on a British shelf - this box is the shelf.

In stock

The register

A toy shop shot like a record label.

Cute is the easy half. The half we care about is that it looks like something with an opinion - which is why the pictures on this site are lit like a drop and not like a catalogue.

Our own footage, shot for the brand. The register the whole shop is built to.

The shelf

Three things, built properly.

Everything on the shelf
The laced half-zip set worn against a black studio backdrop, hands on hips.
Designed in Britain

The Laced Half-Zip Set

Black half-zip, pink ribbon lacing, safety-pin skirt. The look the whole brand was shot in.

£48

The pink bear sitting on a subway bench under a CHERRY VIBE neon sign.
From Japan

The Pink Bear

A pig in a bear costume. Nobody has explained this to the pig.

£32

A fake anime cinema poster: a jellyfish riding a motorcycle through a neon street. Test product
From Japan

The Jellyfish Poster

A one-sheet for a film nobody ever made. Jellyfish, motorcycle, basketball, neon.

Not for sale

The pink bear on a lit retail shelf.

How we label things

The country is the first line on the card, not the small print.

Japan · Taiwan · Korea · Britain

Everything on the shelf says where it was made and who made it, in that order, before it says anything else about itself. It is the one fact a British character-goods shelf normally leaves out, and it is the fact that decides whether a thing is worth having.

See the shelf by origin

The other direction

週五之箱 - the Friday Box.

A new drop every Friday, shipped to Taiwan: British plush, the character lines that never leave this country, and the small British things a Taiwanese shelf has never carried.

It is written in Traditional Chinese, because it is for buyers in Taiwan.

What it is, in English 看週五之箱
The pink bear sitting on a bench on a neon-lit platform, a train passing behind.

Hear when the next Box Day lands.

One email when a Box Day has a date, and one on the morning it opens. Nothing else. You can leave at any time and we do not sell the list.