From tweens to hens nights: Swift inspires summer of friendship bracelets

It is less than a month until pop superstar Taylor Swift brings her Eras Tour to Australia and excited fans of all ages are bracing – and bracelet-ing – themselves for her arrival.

Swift, who was named Time magazine’s 2023 person of the year, will play seven sold-out shows across Melbourne and Sydney next month.

Aria Hay, aged eight, has made more than 50 bracelets ahead of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour. Credit: Flavio Brancaleone

But while the typical concert merchandise of t-shirts, vinyls and posters will be available at the stadium, a trend of fan-made mementos, popularised during her overseas shows, seems to have already made its way to Australia.

Inspired by a line in her 2023 song You’re on Your Own Kid (“make the friendship bracelets/take the moment and taste it”) Swift’s fans, known as “Swifties”, trade friendship bracelets at her concerts.

A spokesperson for craft supplies chain Spotlight said it had seen a 33.78 per cent increase in searches for friendship bracelets kits on its websites since November, after the tour was announced.

Aria Hay, aged eight, has made more than 50 beaded bracelets before seeing Swift in Sydney with her mother and aunt.

The Year 4 student from Cronulla, in the city’s Sutherland Shire, plans to trade her creations with some of the 83,000-odd other Swifties at the concert.

“I like to put song names on them and also colourful beads,” she said, adding that she planned to make “a lot more” bracelets over the coming weeks.

The bracelets have become something of a cottage industry, with women and girls selling their creations to fellow fans before shows.

Eleven-year-old Charlotte Boeg started making clay bead bracelets at the start of last year, charging $4 a bracelet or $6 for two. Since then, she has sold more than 200 of her creations, mostly to friends at her primary school in Lilli Pilli, also in Sutherland.

“They’re my biggest customers. I bring the bracelets to school to show them and take personalised orders,” she said.

The Swift connection was a happy coincidence for Charlotte, who is a big fan of the singer but missed out on tickets to this year’s shows. Her business, Bracelets by Char, is booming: a girl in her year group recently bought 10 in one go.

With the school holidays presenting a commercial challenge, Charlotte set up a street stall while away with her family on the Gold Coast. Her bestsellers are song and album names, particularly Lover and Reputation.

Steph Beckett, a 31-year-old HR worker from Ivanhoe in Melbourne, started her @erasofbracelets Instagram account in mid-2023.

“I am mostly selling to people locally in Melbourne. I either send them out or meet up,” said Beckett, who has been with Swift since the 1989 album, released 10 years ago.

Taylor Swift fan Steph Beckett has made and sold around 100 bracelets.Credit: Simon Schluter

Beckett’s customers are looking for a memento from the tour.

“Merch can be expensive, but this is something cheaper and customisable, so it means something to them,” she said.

Beckett herself will be at Swift’s first Australian show in Melbourne on February 16, with her best friend who’s been a “Swiftie from the start”.

“We’ll be dressing up and having the best time,” she said.

Tapping into the Millennial market is Sydney Creative, a craft school in the city’s inner suburbs.

Attendees at its friendship bracelet class are taught techniques for stringing the beads while a playlist of Swift’s discography pumps through the studio. The $69 price includes supplies and instruction, and attendees go home with two to five bracelets, depending on the complexity of their designs.

The shop already ran regular bracelet-making classes, but pivoting to the Swift theme made them much more popular, said owner Sophie Parry.

“We also do a lot of hen parties at the shop, so we have run a few classes for Swiftie brides,” she said.

“The thing that’s nice about the class is that everyone has a common interest. Often at the end, people swap their friendship bracelets with each other.”

The commercial impact of Swift’s tour has reached far beyond ticket sales, as out-of-town fans buy flights and accommodation for the nights of the show. This week, New Zealand fashion brand Glassons even released a “front row” collection of outfits designed to be worn to the show.

Flights to Melbourne and Sydney on the weekends of the tour now cost more than double typical prices.

For Brisbane residents attending Swift’s Saturday show in Melbourne, for example, the cheapest return non-stop Jetstar flight departing Friday and returning Sunday is $759, compared to $268 for flights the previous weekend. Virgin flights cost $783, compared to $339 for the weekend before.

Domestic airfares to Sydney have spiked when Swift will arrive the following week. The cheapest Jetstar flight from Brisbane for the weekend currently costs $653 return, almost $500 more than the $175 fare for the previous weekend. Non-stop Virgin flights increase from $318 to $876.

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