American pop singer Taylor Swift’s numbers are typically stratospheric. His US tour this year added US$4.3 billion to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) and helped make him a billionaire artist. Your shows – Arriving in Rio de Janeiro this weekend And in Sao Paulo, next – it’s more than three hours. the movie that plays the presentation When it debuted in its home country it grossed over US$90 million and became the record holder for the genre in cinemas. Taylor Swift’s tentacles in the economy are so wide that they even reach the corridors of the Galeria do Ovidor in the center of Belo Horizonte.
In recent weeks, fans of the singer have been busy in the gallery’s craft store in search of ideal beads for their “friendship bracelets”, which they will exchange with each other at the artist’s show starting this Friday. Are eagerly planning (11/ 17). In some stores, sales have nearly doubled the normal pace this time of year, and some options are beginning to run out.
The bracelets feature colorful beads, lyrics and song titles and have become almost mandatory among Swift fans, who get a ticket for the tour – which costs R$1,050. They are based on verses from one of his songs released in 2022, “You’re alone, baby” (“You’re all alone, baby”), which mentions accessories. Some vendors at Galeria do Ovidor had never heard of the singer, much less the song, but they confirm that Swift is messing with their routine.
“At this time, it is not normal to sell so many pearls. We’ve been working harder last week and this week. We bought five times more letter garlands. We took note of the demand and managed to stock up a lot so as not to run out, but some colors started running out. The red one was the first”, describes Fernanda Nunes, manager of Alien Bijouterie. In Taylor Swift’s universe, every detail has a symbolism: for example, red beads are linked to her album “Red”Color name in english.
At Ornatos Bijouterias, another store in the gallery, sales of letter and number beads increased by almost 80% compared to the normal period, says the manager, Deborah Medina: “Last week, we sold ten kilos. This is a lot, because each 20 gram package contains about 200 mixed letters. Each customer spends more or less R$50.” Some of the beaded models are no longer available from suppliers, most of them from 25 de Marco in São Paulo. “Now that they are not coming, customers have what they have. He takes it.”
In addition to the shopping frenzy, the Gallery of the ’60s became a meeting place for hundreds of teen and adult Swift fans. Fernanda Nunes of Eliane Bijouterias proves that even before the show started, “friendship bracelets” have lived up to their name: “There are girls who find other people here who also go to the show and arrange to meet up , exchange phone numbers. Sometimes, one doesn’t know what to buy, and the other explains.”