Fueled by influencers, collectors, and the thrill of rarity, high-priced peel-apart analog film is having a very 2025 revival.
By Chen Yiru and Qian Yi
A long-discontinued type of instant film has surged in popularity among young Chinese consumers, with single peel-apart instant photos now selling for up to 600 yuan ($85) at vintage photo studios.
Peel-apart instant film has become a nostalgic luxury in China, prized for its rarity, analog charm, and the romantic unpredictability of each shot. Helped along by social media trends and vintage photo studios, its sudden revival has even earned it a nickname: the “Paper Moutai” of photography — referring to China’s famously high-priced liquor.
First introduced in 1947, peel-apart instant film develops by manually peeling apart layers after a photo is taken. The paper is coated with chemicals that react to light, imprinting the image as the layers separate. Both major producers — Polaroid and Fujifilm — discontinued the last of their peel-apart films in the mid-2010s.
The film was originally priced at around 70 yuan per box of 10, but with production halted and shelf life limited to just two years, expired stock now sells for up to 4,500 yuan ($621) on secondhand e-commerce platforms. In photo studios, a single shot typically costs between 300 and 600 yuan, depending on the camera and setup.
Posts on peel-apart instant film on Xiaohongshu.
On Xiaohongshu, the lifestyle platform known in English as RedNote, a search for peel-apart film returns more than 67,000 posts — many featuring celebrity-style portraits with captions like “one less film in the world” or “get the same look as [celebrity name].” Others are opting for digital imitations, using editing apps to replicate the medium’s signature imperfections: color shifts, uneven exposure, bleeding edges, and coarse grain.
Yu Ji, who has run a vintage Polaroid camera shop in Hangzhou, capital of the eastern Zhejiang province, for more than seven years, remembers when peel-apart film was still a niche product. “A box of color film cost 70 yuan back then, and black-and-white was even cheaper,” he said. “Most buyers were camera enthusiasts. No one came in asking for peel-apart film specifically.”
In recent years, as demand spiked, so did prices, with some film costing nearly 1,000 yuan per shot. To keep up, Yu imported 20 boxes of Fujifilm-brand film from overseas last year, paying about 150 yuan per sheet.
A show owner's peel apart instant film collection. Courtesy of Yu Ji
He now charges 360 yuan per peel-apart photo and 400 yuan for one taken with a Polaroid Big Shot, a cult-favorite camera model from the 1970s. His newest customers are mostly students and celebrity fans looking to capture what he calls “the last flickers of a disappearing format.”
“It’s hard to get and not everyone can shoot with it. That exclusivity is part of the appeal,” Yi Tong, an influencer with over 10,000 followers on Xiaohongshu, told Sixth Tone. A short video of her peel-apart film shoot drew more than 6,700 likes, far above her usual average.
Vivian Lu, another content creator, described the experience as a splurge worth making. “I went for the ‘one less photo per shoot’ allure — that’s probably the biggest difference from Polaroid,” she said. “A photo taken with the Big Shot at the store I visited cost 330 yuan. It’s a bit pricey, but still within reason.”
Even Fujifilm seems surprised by the craze. A spokesperson for the company told domestic media that all peel-apart film currently in circulation is leftover stock, and speculated that the renewed interest might simply be a tactic to drive social media traffic. They also warned that, given the film’s expiration, image quality and consistency are no longer guaranteed.
Editor: Apurva.
(Header image: Visuals from Xiaohongshu, re-edit by Sixth Tone)