‘Like Halloween’: Bay Area Swifties get creative with their Eras Tour outfits

Sarah Peters, 22, doesn’t consider herself a fashion designer. But she is a proud “Swiftie.” And so it turns out her pandemic painting hobby gave her the idea to design colorful, customized jeans adorned with Taylor Swift song references — Cornelia Street on one leg and a purple dragon on the other for her, and a different design for her mom, Tammi — to wear in honor of her muse’s Eras Tour concert in Santa Clara this month.

They don’t have tickets and venue officials said fans without them should stay away. So Sarah and Tammi haven’t decided whether to travel from their Livermore home to join thousands of other bejeweled and bedazzled devotees paying homage to Swift both inside and outside Levi’s Stadium during two concerts July 28 and 29. Those fans have spent weeks preparing — from trading friendship bracelets to hand-making their own outfits that highlight one or the other of Swift’s career incarnations, from paisley country frocks to sequined, jewel-toned, form-hugging body suits and everything in between.

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As one professor studying Swifties puts it: “It’s like Halloween. If you aren’t wearing your costume, you will stand out.”

“The folks that were just wearing a black t-shirt … they stood out,” Brian Donovan, a sociologist at the University of Kansas who also attended one of the Eras Tour concerts, said. “But the people in the elaborate purple ball gowns — they fit right in.”

Anna Dai, 34, wasn’t initially planning on wearing anything special, but when she saw other people planning to dress up she knew she also had to do it. The South San Jose resident grew up listening to Taylor Swift and is modeling her outfit after one of the iconic purple gowns from the “Speak Now” album.

“Her growing kind of paralleled with my growing,” Dai, who is only 9 months older than Swift, said. “It just feels like we were growing up at the same time, going through all the same feelings of turmoil.”

Dai was around 20 when “Speak Now” was released — a time she remembered as “very confusing, sad, maybe uncomfortable.” The album, which was recently rereleased, captures both Swift’s transition from country to pop and from adolescence to adulthood.

“It’s super cool to see ‘Speak Now’ being re-released,” Dai said. “We’re just like kind of coming full circle.”

While it’s not unusual for fans to dress up in T-shirts or colors specific to an artist, Donovan thinks there is something unique about Swift’s influence on her fandom. As an example, he points to the friendship culture bracelet among Swifties. After the singer released “You’re on Your Own, Kid” from her “Midnights” album, which includes the lyric “so make the friendship bracelet,” some fans started making and exchanging their own.

“Taylor had, other than writing that one lyric, nothing to do with the friendship bracelet phenomenon, and now it’s become an established part of the culture of these concerts,” Donovan said.

Dawn Winston, 50, and her children, Lily and Abby Cullo, 17 and 13, are all in on the friendship bracelet phenomenon.

“I’m not a good social person, and so I was kind of scared about trading bracelets. … But so many people would come up to you and (say), ‘Hey, do you want to trade bracelets?’” Lily said, recounting her experience at Swift’s Chicago show in early June. “It made me so happy to see other people again, and it just cemented the human connection.”

The Sacramento family says the trinkets have become a regular part of their lives; sporting them in everyday outfits and even leaving some at a local Target for Swifties to find.

“I wear these to work,” said Winston, who works at an accounting firm. “I can’t have friendship bracelets hanging out, so on one side, it just looks like a little bit more professional.” But when flipped over, one of the bracelets says “Karma is a cat,” a reference to the song “Karma” off of the “Midnights” album.

The family plans on wearing outfits to the concert, with the mom dressing up as a cat and the sisters dressing up in capes and dresses to commemorate Swift’s attire during the “Folklore” and “Evermore” albums. And yes, you will even find the dad wearing a shirt with a Taylor Swift reference on it.

It is not uncommon for Swifties to gather outside the concert venue and listen to the show from the outside, which is unofficially called “Taygating” or “Taylgating.” In fact, it’s the reason why Carmel High School teacher Leigh Cambra is going to the Santa Clara concert even though she doesn’t have a ticket.

“I actually kind of want the experience of hanging out outside (the venue),” Cambra said. And yes, you will find her there with friendship bracelets and her special outfit: a top that says “A LOT GOING ON AT THE MOMENT,” a reference to a similar shirt from Swift’s “22” music video and something Cambra could personally relate to as a teacher.

Donovan compared the culture of the Eras Tour concert to Grateful Dead parking lot culture or rave culture.

“It’s a more sober crowd than either the Deadheads or the ravers,” Donovan said. “But that sense of safety too, that sense of ‘we’re all here and we’re not here to get into fights or flex our status,’ I think that is a positive parallel.”

Donovan thinks history is going to look back on Swift’s Eras Tour as a major cultural moment. “I will put my neck out and say that this is going to be one of the most important concert experiences of the 21st century.”