An LA Shopping Guide for Trinket Lovers: Where We Shopped, Ate and Stayed

It’s no secret that Teen Vogue, and the world at large, loves a good trinket. And because Los Angeles is a great place to find all the plushies, charms, and little collectibles that make life sweeter, we decided to make a comprehensive Los Angeles shopping guide to find the best spots.

I have always been a trinket collector. From Bratz dolls to Beanie Babies, to more recently, Popmart’s “The Monsters” ie: Labubus and bag charms, if it is cute and playful and speaks to my personality, I have to have it. In 2022, when writer Angelina Chapin wrote Inside the Crowded, Childish Joys of Cluttercore, the story and title resonated with me immediately (and still does).

Throughout the piece, Chapin includes various quotes from fellow collectors – “‘One 20-something tells me cluttercore is ‘a love letter to yourself.’ Another says it should feel like ‘walking through a museum or gallery of my inner obsessions and memories.’” That was me.

Ruby Redstone, fashion historian and contemporary fashion writer, shared a post, “My Journey to the Heart of Labubu,” in her newsletter, Old Fashioned!,“and wrote, “As I careened toward teenhood, the toys I collected mirrored a bit of the turmoil I felt inside, equal parts cute and horrifying, covetable and lonely.’” Both writers highlight the innate satisfaction of using trinkets and collectibles for outward expression. As Chapin says it's, “living inside a museum of yourself."

In an attempt to further tap into the trinket zeitgeist, Teen Vogue’s Associate Fashion and Beauty Editor, Donya Momenian, drummed up the idea of an “LA trinket haul,” as a few of us were going to be in town for an upcoming cover photo shoot.

The first matter of business upon touching down in LA is always to establish the closest geographic proximity to an In-N-Out.

Then, once properly nourished, the next order of business was finalizing our list of trinket stops for the following day. We mapped out where we would be going, and did our best to stop by as many as our schedules would allow. Here is what we gathered for our LA shopping guide:

Sticker Planet | 6333 W 3rd St #220 Los Angeles, CA 90036

Japan LA | 233 S La Brea Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90036

Sanrio Japanese Village | 115 Japanese Village Plaza Mall, Los Angeles, CA 90012

Monkey Pants | 131 Japanese Village Plaza Mall, Los Angeles, CA 90012

LINE FRIENDS SQUARE | 6922 Hollywood Blvd #101, Los Angeles, CA 90028

Hightide Store DTLA | 787 S Alameda St UNIT 140, Los Angeles, CA 90021

Vivienne Westwood | 8320 Melrose Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90069

We didn’t have time to get to these, but consider adding them to your own trinket shopping trip!

POPMART

Momotoys

Heaven by Marc Jacobs

The morning of our LA trinket crawl day started off at the lovely Stardust by Avantstay home, a Homes & Villas by Marriott Bonvoy property located in sunny Malibu, California. Stardust acted as the perfect place for creative inspiration, rest and relaxation for our day ahead. For the size of our group, we loved having the ability to not only enjoy the expansive ocean views from the backyard, but also loved being able to gather together as a group to assess our trinket hauls (more on that later).

First up on the itinerary was Sticker Planet, located in The Original Farmers Market section of The Grove.

The store itself is relatively small, but still packed to the brim with endless sticker options – the most I’ve seen in one place like this in a very long time. I can’t wait to use them in my journals, for my snail mail, and for my ultimate goal of getting back into scrapbooking and/ junk journaling like craft extraordinaire Martina Calvi. Here were some of our hauls:

We stopped by Erewhon for an afternoon pick-me-up, and then we were back on the road. Donya & Associate Visuals Editor, Bea Oyster, popped into LINE FRIENDS SQUARE at their Hollywood location to pick-up some plushies, pens, and more, and explored the store to capture some extra pics, as well.

Next up was Japanese pop culture store Japan LA – essentially a trinket fever dream, chock-full of plush bag charms, gigantic plushies, blind boxes galore, and more. We also met up with our Senior Social Media Manager, Honestine Fraser – and our trinket group continued to grow!

The sales associates at Japan LA were incredibly nice and expertly dressed –– catch them on Japan LA’s TikTok for new drops!

At this point, we realized it wasn’t worth it to stress about perfectly matching our trinkets – just get things that bring you joy, and somehow they will go together in the end.

Teen Vogue's designer, Liz Coulbourn, eventually met up with us in Little Tokyo, which also has an abundance of places to snag a trinket or two (or five).

For Teen Vogue’s Little Tokyo stops, we dropped by Sanrio Japanese Village as well as Monkey Pants, where Associate Director, Programming & Creative Development, Amalie MacGowan, picked up a Puchi Baby deer bag charm, which inspired me to quickly break from our Cafe Dulce treat to run back into the store to grab my very own Puchi Baby in a red and white gingham pattern. I’m now in love. Honestine also grabbed a bag charm of her own to add to her collection while in Monkey Pants. She went with a blue “Ice Bat” Uglydoll).

At this point, we were past lunch and nearing dinner hour, so we stopped at Pikunico LA – a food spot located at the ROW DTLA, and widely known for their Japanese fried chicken sandwiches which have never disappointed.

A nearby surprise was Hightide Store DTLA, which is incredible for stationary and the like – I picked up two keychains, and a notebook.

Our last stop of the day was the ever iconic Vivienne Westwood where I splurged on this keychain I had been eyeing for awhile. After that, we debriefed and assessed our hauls.

Our trinket inspiration also found its way onto the set of our photo shoot via prop stylist extraordinaire Renna Pilar, who created the bedroom of our dreams as evidenced in these behind-the-scenes shots from our photoshoot, including but not limited to: an insane cake created by Scout Zabinski that we didn’t get to shoot but did get to eat!