Earth angels

Winnipeg Free Press

10-05-2025

In 2017, while visiting New York City, Winnipeg retailer Lauren Wittmann spotted a teensy-tiny baby in a gift shop window and asked, 'How much?'
'I had no idea what a Sonny Angel was,' says Wittmann, who, with her mother Trish, co-owns Riley Grae, one of the city's leading purveyors of cuteness and kitsch since opening on Corydon Avenue in 2019.
'I just thought it was so adorable and so I got one.'
Riley Grae co-owner Lauren Wittmann has a personal collection of Sonny Angels
Then another, and another, and another: the figurines, mostly naked, usually pantsless cherubic-looking boys wearing different kinds of headgear, about eight centimetres tall, quickly became a personal obsession for Wittmann. Ever since the shop began carrying the figurines in October 2022, the rate of adoption across Winnipeg has skyrocketed.
In under three years, Riley Grae has sold more than 14,000 of the collectibles produced by Japan's Dreams Inc., retailing at a price range from $19 to $24.
For the business, which opened on the eve of the pandemic, the seraphic babies, which, like hockey cards, are distributed in 'blind boxes,' have been an economic godsend.
Every time a new shipment of Sonny Angels or associated products 'drops,' a horde of eager collectors assembles on Corydon, with the queue often exceeding 200 customers, each in pursuit of a trinket's worth of joy and moral support.
'They're so cute, they're so tiny and they bring me happiness,' says accounting student Eliza Param, who lined up at 9 a.m. last month to get her hands on a Sonny Angel Hipper, which sticks to the top of a cellphone and stares outward across the back.
'Mine are all on a shelf in my bedroom. They sit there and watch me study,' says 21-year-old university student Gabby Serek, who has as many figurines as she has years lived.
The Sonny Angel product line has existed since 2004, but Dreams Inc.'s fortunes have risen with the advent of TikTok, where millions of posts highlight the figurines' charms and the thrill that comes with opening their hexagonal containers.
'A lot of the appeal is the adrenaline,' says Wittmann, who repurposed a shelf intended for an antique spoon collection as a display for her own array.
While this form of babified trinkets is still relatively novel, Wittmann believes the current trend is the latest stage of a century-spanning tradition of comforting, infant-based art.
'As weird as it is, people have always liked cute, naked baby decor,' Wittmann says with a laugh.
'Think about bathrooms filled with cherubs and those prints you'd find at grandma's house of a baby sitting in a pile of vegetables or sitting in a pasta pot at an Italian restaurant in a movie.'
According to the product's lore, Sonny is a 'little angel boy … who will always be by your side, watching over you and making you smile.'
Since his birthday — May 15, 2004 — the Japanese manufacturer has introduced more than 650 variations to the market, contributing to the product's collectible appeal.
While some customers were early adopters, Wittmann says Sonny Angels didn't exactly fly off the shelves until they achieved more ubiquity on TikTok and other social media.
'Now people come in on a mission,' she says.
Last year, the figurines were the focus of a Saturday Night Live sketch starring pop star Dua Lipa.
'I think I've seen those on shy teenagers' phone cases. What are they?' asked cast member Marcello Hernandez.
'They're huge. They're companions for lonely 25-year-old working women,' Lipa replied.
But the customer base is wider than that, says Wittmann, who estimates that her store regularly welcomes collectors who span expected gender and age demographics.
Brothers King and Prince Camia — 15 and 24, respectively — are avid Sonny Angel fans.
There have been more than 650 variations of Sonny Angels released since 2004, with most
figurines only wearing different headgear and tops.
'It makes me happy to waste my money on stupid collectibles like this,' says King, a student at Tec-Voc.
Fleeting joy, or the pursuit of it, is key to the Sonny Angel brand, perhaps best exemplified by the product's will-he-or-won't-he motto: 'He may bring you happiness.'
'I think specifically this past year there's been a trinket trend online, a trend about allowing yourself to treat and heal your inner child by buying anything playful and unnecessary, and I understand the hype: if we didn't sell them here, I'd be in line to buy them elsewhere,' Wittmann says.
Six British Columbia retailers carry the products, along with one in Alberta and 13 in Ontario, but Riley Grae is the only Manitoba shop with angels in stock.
With the ongoing volatility to international supply chains owing to U.S. President Donald Trump's tariff threats, Trish Wittmann anticipates that Sonny Angels, along with other shop staples, such as Baggu products, could be arriving with less frequency, at a higher price tag, or both, in the coming months.
Between product-specific surcharges, tariffs and counter-tariffs, the independent retailer has had to carefully assess the viability of most international vendor relationships, she says.
'It's quite sad for us because there are so many awesome, small independent artists in the States that we support. The short and tall of this is that (the tariffs) are affecting our business greatly,' Trish Wittmann says.
While Sonny Angel enthusiasts are keen on continuing to amass their personal collections, the figurines, which arrive at Riley Grae through an American distribution centre, have already seen their prices increase.
'It's not fun, but it's what's happening with everything,' says Lauren Wittmann.
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Ben WaldmanReporter
Ben Waldman is a National Newspaper Award-nominated reporter on the Arts & Life desk at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg, Ben completed three internships with the Free Press while earning his degree at Ryerson University's (now Toronto Metropolitan University's) School of Journalism before joining the newsroom full-time in 2019. Read more about Ben.
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