The Shadow Swiftie Economy Booms With Bootleg Bracelets and $1,150 Bodysuits
Web shops such as Etsy brim with independent retailers selling merch inspired by the pop star.
Taylor Swift fans looking to buy T-shirts, bodysuits, friendship bracelets or myriad other tokens of devotion to the pop star might consider going to her official online store. But those who’ve tried recently were out of luck. In the runup to the April 19 release of The Tortured Poets Department, the shop has offered only preorders of special-edition CDs, cassettes and vinyl of the album. That hasn’t put much of a crimp in the booming Swiftie economy, though, because countless retailers have popped up on Etsy, Amazon.com and print-on-demand sites such as Redbubble with a vast range of merch with Swift’s look or lyrics.
Fans are often inspired to dress like their favorite billionaire, with videos of concert attendees wearing near-exact re-creations of her bedazzled bodysuits from the Eras Tour racking up hundreds of thousands of views on TikTok. In six months last year, when Swift’s tour was crisscrossing the US and fans exchanged friendship bracelets to commemorate attendance, Etsy says, its vendors sold $3 million worth of the beaded trinkets.