In the universe of Taylor Alison Swift, nothing happens by chance. And sometimes, those “non accidents”, also known as “Easter eggs” to her legion of fans, can reverberate all the way to Australia.
Such was the case at Monday’s Super Bowl LVIII in Las Vegas, where Swift had flown from Tokyo – at warp speed, thanks to her private jet – to watch her boyfriend, Travis Kelce, play in the Kansas City Chiefs’ last-gasp 25-22 win over the San Francisco 49ers.
Taylor Swift, centre, wears a corset by Australian Dion Lee at Monday’s Super Bowl.Credit: Getty
The Chiefs may have triumphed on the field, but it may fall to Australian designer Dion Lee to have the last laugh. Such is the strength of so-called “Swiftonomics” – AKA “The Tay-Tay effect” – that even if the $650 crochet corset Swift wore to the game isn’t an overnight sell-out (which it surely will be), the appearance will be a money-can’t-buy marketing opportunity for Lee, says Queensland University of Technology marketing professor Gary Mortimer.
“Fashion retailers cannot underestimate the power of celebrity endorsement,” he says. “You only need to look at celebrities, sports stars and even royals to see the impact they can have on a brand. It’s almost immediate.”
Catherine, the Princess of Wales, Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, and Princess Diana, in her day, have been known to move product and turn up-and-coming designers into household names, sometimes overnight.
It’s not the first time Swift has worn an Australian brand – she’s also a fan of denim shorts by Ksubi – but the proximity to her tour arguably makes the Dion Lee placement her most valuable yet for an Australian label.
The corset worn by Taylor Swift, by Australian designer Dion Lee (right).Credit: Dion Lee/Getty
Other Australian brands to have experienced a similar buzz include Zimmermann and J’Aton, both of which have dressed music megastar Beyonce. And Rebecca Vallance, who has many celebrity fans, recently scored a coup when Paris Hilton was photographed wearing one of her dresses.
Lee has been approached for comment.
As of Monday afternoon, there were still limited sizes available in the corset via the online store for Dion Lee, which is majority owned by the Sydney-based Cue fashion group. The designer, who has been based in New York for several years, launched the label in 2009, and in 2017 was named the Australian Fashion Laureate.
Twenty-four hours after the corset set social media abuzz, interest in Lee has reached an all-time high. On Tuesday, a Google spokeswoman said searches for the designer had increased by 840 per cent on Monday, compared to the day before. There was also a record level of interest in Australia for the US brand Area, whose jeans Swift paired with the Dion Lee top.
Mortimer expects the publicity generated by Swift wearing the Dion Lee design will have several flow-on effects, including a higher likelihood of fast-fashion brands copying the style.
“There’s certainly a halo effect,” he says. “By [Lee] bringing his brand to the forefront to millions if not billions [of people], you have global exposure and access to a different market that may not have known of the brand originally or had any desire to buy it.”
Although the Eras tour and Swift’s connection to Kelce make her the hottest celebrity property in the world right now, Lee’s famous fans also extend to Kylie Minogue, Gigi Hadid and Dua Lipa.
The Taylor Swift effect is having a far wider reaching impact on retail trends more generally, with Google reporting searches for the term “sequins” at an all-time high in Australia, a statistic a spokeswoman says is directly attributable to the tour and its local leg, which kicks off in Melbourne on Friday.
As for the rest of Swift’s ensemble, it included a pair of embellished jeans by label Area, which had its New York Fashion Week show on the same night as the Super Bowl. Coincidence? Unlikely.
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