Vintage photo trend turns heads in China
Scarcity, nostalgia, and celebrity influence turn a discontinued photo format into China’s latest consumer sensation.
A single peel-apart photo in China now sells for up to ¥400 (US$55)—a price increase surpassing that of gold.
Once niche and obsolete, Polaroid-style "peel-apart film" has become a youth-driven luxury, ignited by celebrity influence and social media virality.
Search volume for the film on Alibaba’s resale platform Xianyu surged 30x in May compared to April; average daily transactions spiked 540% month-on-month.
The surge has turned once-cheap expired photo paper into "paper Maotai" with some packs selling for ¥3,300, up from less than ¥100 a decade ago.
A micro-economy has formed: pop-up photo studios, camera rentals, and Photoshop-based imitations are capitalizing on the retro aesthetic trend.
In an era of AI-generated filters and algorithmic perfection, China’s Gen Z is chasing imperfection. Instant peel-apart film—a discontinued analog photo format from Fujifilm and Polaroid, where images develop inside chemical-coated sheets and are manually peeled apart after shooting—has roared back to life, not in laboratories or art studios, but on Weibo and Xiaohongshu.
With only expired stock remaining worldwide, its scarcity has collided with celebrity nostalgia and social validation, fueling a retro photography boom rooted in tactile experience and visual uniqueness.
The analog photo that broke the internet
It began with shadows—literally. Over the May Day holiday, raw, high-contrast photos of top Chinese celebrities taken on peel-apart film flooded social media feeds.
