As Taylor Swift is about to host six Eras Tour concerts at Toronto’s Rogers Centre starting on Thursday, don’t forget the fans’ Swift-inspired clothes and friendship bracelets as part of their show-going ritual.
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“It’s been a running theme for a lot of her concerts for many years that people would dress up inspired by outfits either she’s worn on stage or from the albums or inspired by the lyrics,” said Markham elementary school teacher Victoria Ngai, 26, who is going to the Friday show after a university friend offered tickets to buy.
“My best friend Alex (Baldwin, 27,) and I we are going to meet up and get ready together (at my partner’s place downtown). Because they are sister albums, I’m going to be (2020’s) Folklore, she’s going to be (2020’s) Evermore. Like long flowing dresses, braids, florals for me. Plaid for her because on the album cover Taylor wears a plaid coat. And we’re going to do face gems on our face.”
Toronto lawyer Haley Brittain, 29, is going to the Thursday show after winning tickets from Rogers with her mother Heather White Brittain, 62, the latter flying in the night before from Halifax to stay at her daughter’s apartment.
Haley is planning on wearing a black sequined dress inspired by Swift’s Midnights (2022) and Reputation (2017) albums, respectively, and Heather is going to wear a silver sequined blazer that’s similar to one Swift is wearing on tour for the song The Man.
“People have really gotten into dressing up,” said Haley. “When I went to the (Eras Tour show) in Detroit (in May), I could really see that and it was so cool, some of the creative costumes that people had made.”
Sarah Andrews, 46, and her daughter Brielle, 15, will take the GO Train in from their Oshawa home for the Saturday show with Sarah’s outfit inspired by the song Daylight and Brielle’s tinsel jacket and rhinestone body suit and skirt resembling one of Swift’s Eras Tour outfits.
“I think it’s definitely a time for creative expression, but then anything goes,” said Sarah, who won her tickets from Rogers. “There’s funny costumes. I saw someone at her show, she was dressed up as a typewriter for The Tortured Poets Department (2024) album.”
Martha Murphy, 58, of Port Lambton, south of Sarnia, is going with her daughter Kate, 21, a fine arts student at Western University in London, Ont., to the Saturday show.
Kate said she’ll wear “a white little dress and some black gloves to be like Taylor’s Tortured Poets Department look. And then the other half of that album is more black, so mom’s going to wear a black, frilly top.”
The two, who also won their tickets from Rogers, will drive into Toronto and stay with some friends overnight.
“We’re just going to get into it and just feel the vibe of it all and the emotions and trade (friendship) bracelets,” said Martha Murphy.
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Turns out the bracelets were inspired by a Swift song called You’re on Your Own, Kid from Midnights.
“There’s a part that says, ‘So make the friendship bracelets, take the moment and taste it,’” said Kate.
“And then everyone was like, ‘For this tour, we should make bracelets with song names on them and then give them out and trade them.’”
Ngai has made no fewer than 35 of them so far, all of which she plans to wear before trading.
“It’s just a nice community-building activity,” she said. “Trading and making friendship bracelets makes a show so immensely massive like the Eras Tour seem intimate.”