No one can sell out $US695 shorts like Taylor Swift
The musician’s star power has been a boon to fashion brands.
In August, Nell Diamond, who runs the fashion and lifestyle brand Hill House Home, was in Montana on bridesmaid duty, getting ready for her best friend’s wedding reception. Peeking at her phone between hair and makeup, she found more than 100 texts from her employees, and messages kept rolling in.
“At first I couldn’t figure out what we were freaking out about,” says Diamond, founder and chief executive of the brand best known for its Nap Dress.
Then she saw: Taylor Swift had worn a black matching set from Hill House to the rehearsal dinner of her frequent collaborator Jack Antonoff and actor Margaret Qualley, and paparazzi photos were swarming the internet.
The scalloped bandeau “nap top” ($US125) and midi skirt ($US175) sold out in under two hours, Diamond says.
She posted an Instagram story saying sales increased by 4600 per cent for the top and 9600 per cent for the skirt, dubbing it “The Taylor Swift Effect”.
Swift is known for selling out stadium concerts, movie screenings and merch. Her performances boost local economies, thanks to fans who fill hotels, bars and restaurants. The pop star also has become a powerful driver of fashion sales. Brands say that when Swift wears their clothes and accessories, they almost always sell out.
Swift tends to pair higher-end labels with relatively affordable brands such as Free People and Reformation, so Swifties “can actually shop many of the things she wears”, Diamond says, “and that makes them feel even more connected”.
Swift’s personal style is accessible in other ways. She re-wears items more often than most celebrities and often dresses in basics: white shirts, denim shorts, baseball caps.
Though she has dabbled in collaborations through the years – a partnership with the sneaker brand Keds in the 2010s, a collection with Stella McCartney for her Lover album in 2019 – she has never been the face of a luxury brand or fashion house. This means she can wear whatever she wants to red-carpet events, onstage and out to dinner with girlfriends in New York City.
Though she works with a personal stylist, Joseph Cassell Falconer, there is a sense of her personality in almost every miniskirt and sparkly dress. Through a representative, Cassell Falconer declined to comment. A representative for Swift didn’t respond to requests for comment.
“She marches to the beat of her own drum and her personal style appeals to such a broad demographic,” says Maria Borromeo, the chief executive of handbag and shoe brand Mansur Gavriel.
All three of the bags Swift has carried from the label have sold out, and more than 2000 people are on waiting lists to buy them. The brand says its Instagram stories of Swift in their designs are the “absolute highest” in terms of social impressions, driving more than 100,000 impressions in less than 24 hours.
Here’s how the Taylor Swift fashion cycle typically works, according to brands she has worn: Cassell Falconer, a former Nashville music representative and producer now based in Los Angeles, will visit a brand’s showroom or receive a lookbook. He’ll select items he thinks Swift will like, and the brand will send them over, almost always as a gift. (His other clients have included Kerry Washington and Maren Morris.) Multiple brands say they are appreciative that unlike a lot of celebrities, Swift sends back pieces she doesn’t think she’ll wear. There are surprises, as Swift sometimes obtains items without the brands’ involvement. She often wears new clothes or accessories soon after receiving them, and when photos are published, a slew of fan accounts rush to identify every part of her outfit. Swifties may then follow the brands on social media or shell out to buy the items for themselves.
Sarah Chapelle has compiled the most comprehensive archive of Swift’s outfits on her blog, Taylor Swift Style, and is working on a book about the singer’s approach to fashion.
In the 12 years since she started the blog, Chapelle says, Swift’s style has remained “consistently and unabashedly feminine.”
She notes that Swift crafts her personal style around her different eras the same way she does her music. During her darker Reputation chapter, for example, she wore a lot of black, dark green, camouflage and snake print. In one of two music videos for Delicate, a song on that album, Swift wore pastel nail polish, which Chapelle says tipped fans off to the palette she had planned for her Lover era.
“She uses (fashion) as a communication tool,” says Chapelle. “That’s how her songs work: taking a certain moment in time and a certain way she felt and permanently encasing it in song to create a lasting memory.”
One of Swift’s most viral fashion moments this year was when she wore a pair of crystal-embellished jean shorts from Area to a Kansas City Chiefs game in support of her beau Travis Kelce. She also wore the brand’s Rebirth jeans, which feature a butterfly patch, the first time she was spotted out after her break-up with actor Joe Alwyn. Both items – which retail for $US695 ($1058) each – sold out almost immediately, according to the brand’s chief executive and co-founder, Beckett Fogg.
“Nobody has the power that Taylor Swift does,” says Fogg, whose brand has been worn by Beyonce, Kendall Jenner, Bella Hadid and Cardi B. “It really has an impact across our business within an entire category – across denim or across pants or shorts – and not just on that specific item.”
Amy Williams, chief executive of Citizens of Humanity Group, which includes the denim brands Agolde, Goldsign and Citizens of Humanity, says Swift has a similar effect to Rihanna. Both have worn Agolde repeatedly and can cause products with smaller production runs to sell out.
After Swift wore a denim minidress from EB Denim to a VMAs after-party, founder and creative director Elena Bonvicini says, “I woke up the next day and it was like, articles, followers, sales, sales, sales.” According to the company, the $US480 ($731) dress sold out both on the brand’s site and at stores such as Saks and FWRD in under eight hours. A few days later, Swift was photographed at dinner with her friend Sophie Turner in another piece by the brand, a $US480 ($731) denim trench coat; that sold out in under 10 hours.
Swift has been spotted in pieces from Mazin Jewels, a mostly under-$70 jewellery line, a number of times. “Once her fan pages started tagging it, the sales came in within seconds,” says founder Lily Nizam. “I was like, is my phone glitching or something?” The brand has produced additional inventory to keep up with demand. Nizam says that other celebrities such as Katy Perry, Kelly Clarkson and Sophia Vergara wear her pieces, but none moves product like Swift does.
“Even influencers who have millions of followers who have tagged the brand, I don’t see that much of an impact on sales,” she says, “but (with) Taylor who doesn’t even tag the brand, the sales just skyrocket within seconds.”
In October, Swift wore a tasselled trunk bag from leather goods brand Hunting Season to dinner in the West Village a few days after the brand sent it to her. Even though the $US925 ($1408) bag was barely visible in paparazzi shots, fans identified it, leading to a surge of sales and social media followers.
Lena Baranovsky, the co-founder of Hunting Season, says it all comes down to the pop star’s persona. “Taylor is relatable,” she says. “You want to emulate her look because it feels like something you can actually do.” Maybe not all stars are just like us, but Taylor certainly dresses the part.
The Wall Street Journal
