Last weekend while we visited Mexico City for the Urban Culture Fashion Fest, we noticed that many booths and even runway models carried with them various renditions of plushy character dolls. Similar to the Ugly Doll movement, whereby different characters are made up on plush little pillows, brands such as Nomsters, Freaky Friends, and Fabrica Pop from Mexico City are leading the next movement in toy/doll culture.

While the urban vinyl toy culture remains strong in Mexico, as indicated in last week’s story, “The City Loves You Art Installation Highlights Latest in Urban Vinyl Toys, Graffiti, + Street Art from Various Branches of Mexico’s Urban Culture,” what’s next on the radar are the plushy character creatures. Nomster, for example, creates the body of the characters, which come with pockets filled with various DIY items such as eyeballs, felt lips, stitching patterns, and other things so that the new owner can create their own characters. Freaky Friends’ dolls which are reminiscent of a plushy Hello Kitty doll, are sold as key accessories with their contemporary fashion apparel, dresses, T-shirts, and pants. Fabrica Pop uses motifs from Mexican wrestlers resulting in characterized pillows such as the famous Blue Demon.

As Jiangsu Wongpec, the producer of the event noted, Mexican fashion culture is also inspired by folklore. This explains why their fashion trade show also had beautifully crafted pillows and the plushy character dolls as displays in various booths which represented different meanings. In many ways, it reminded us of Japan youth culture fashion, particularly around Harajuku, whereby a strong crossover of characters and fashion exist, not only in patterns, accessories, and designs, but even as key accessory attachments, like animal or doll handmuffs, purses in doll characters, and even carrying dolls as part of an overall outfit.