Sales of garden gnomes rockets as unfashionable ornaments make comeback in wacky new styles
Hipsters, ninjas and zombies have joined traditional wheelbarrow-pushing characters and resurrected the brand this Easter
GNOME sales have rocketed after the traditional red-capped figures were replaced by selfie-snapping models and gun-toting gangsters.
Online purchases of the garden ornaments shot up 42percent in the past two weeks and Asda say they have sold 92,000 this year.
Ebay now shift over 20 every day, and the auction website features a “nudist dwarf flasher gnome”, a “stripper gnome” and an “iGnome” reading an iPad-like tablet.
Other figures online include “The Gnominator”, a “Gnomeland Security” guard, a “Gnome Smoking” sign and a “Game of Gnomes” range.
Last year it was feared there were only 5million of the garden fairies left in the UK after sales halved in the previous ten years.
But hipsters, ninjas and zombies have joined the normal wheelbarrow-pushing characters and resurrected the brand this Easter.
Asda say sales rocketed by 21percent this year and they are so popular bosses held a vote for customers on which new figures to introduce.
The supermarket is now set to roll out gnome nurses, firemen, princesses and superheroes in time for summer.
MOST READ IN NEWS
Known gnome-lovers include country singer Dolly Parton, Beatles guitarist George Harrison as well as TV presenters Bill Oddie and Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen.
Chelsea Flower Show have banned the creatures from their gardens for over 100 years, but they lifted the embargo in 2013 for charity.
Artists including Sir Elton John and Dame Helen Mirren decorated the little fellows before they were put on parade for inspection by the Queen.