Sparta Candle Co. soaps inspired by Taylor Swift’s Eras tour and The Department of Tortured Poets album.
Sparta Candle Co.
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Sparta Candle Co.
Sparta Candle Co. soaps inspired by Taylor Swift’s Eras tour and The Department of Tortured Poets album.
Sparta Candle Co.
Taylor Swift’s official online store is stocked with earrings, hoodies, vinyl and other merchandise promoting the star’s latest record-breaking album, THE Department of Tortured Poets.
But there’s also a parallel industry devoted to selling nifty merchandise inspired by Swift’s music and style — and it’s thriving.
“We’ve created serials inspired by all of Taylor Swift’s albums. So of course, we’re excited to bring you this one: Tortured poet“, says Duane Swenk in a TikTok video. It has been online for about a week and has already been viewed more than 300,000 times.
Swenk is the spokesperson for his family soap and candle business, the Sparta Candle Co. – and a big Swiftie. Wearing a beard, a beret and THE Department of Tortured Poets T-shirt, he shows off a soap in the shape of a cup of Earl Gray tea. It comes with a removable saucer.
“This soap has notes of black tea, bergamot, and lemon,” Swenk continues in the video. “It’s a perfectly moody scent to pair with Taylor’s incredible new album.”
Months before The Department of Tortured Poets abandoned, Duane Swenk’s daughter Jennifer Swenk — who is CEO and founder of Sparta Candle Co. and is also a devoted Taylor Swift fan — was looking for clues about it to turn into potential product concepts. When she looked through the titles of upcoming songs, she saw one called “So Long, London.”
Jennifer Swenk said the combination of London and the overall poetic theme of the album gave her the idea for the Soapy Teacup.
“I felt like poetry went hand in hand with a cup of tea,” she said.
Music and style inspire shapes, scents and colors
Taylor Swift’s music evokes whimsical shapes and scents for Jennifer Swenk. But Ashleigh Kiser thinks in color. Her company, Sewrella Yarn, created a line inspired by Swift’s Eras tour, in which the pop star performed songs from her entire catalog.
“Something more like a love song, like Lover “At the time, they were very light, very pastel, very ethereal colors,” Kiser said of pairing Swift’s hits with yarn hues. “While the Always The times became darker, moodier and more complicated in color.
The company has also just launched a collection of threads based on The Department of Tortured Poets.
The Tortured Poets Department yarn collection from Sewrella Yarn.
Sewrella yarn
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Sewrella yarn
The Tortured Poets Department yarn collection from Sewrella Yarn.
Sewrella yarn
Kiser said she loves how Swift inspires a sort of virtuous cycle of creativity in fans.
“Some of our customers would buy the yarn inspired by the tour. And then they would go and knit a sweater or a top or whatever their project was. And then they would wear that to Eras touring concerts,” Kiser said. “So it’s like the music informs the thread that informs the project. And it continues.”
Community feeling
This community aspect of creating Swift-inspired products really appeals to baker Emily Henegar. The entrepreneur’s Nashville, Tennessee-based one-man business, Cookie in the Kitchen, makes intricately decorated cookies incorporating details from Swift’s work and life.
She said she sometimes incorporates other artists’ designs into her own. For example, Henegar said she decorated a cookie with an image she found on social media of a fan-made hat for Swift, which the star then wore to a football game.
Cookie in the Kitchen’s Cookie Collection chronicles Taylor Swift’s relationship with football player Travis Kelce.
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Cookie in the kitchen
Cookie in the Kitchen’s Cookie Collection chronicles Taylor Swift’s relationship with football player Travis Kelce.
Cookie in the kitchen
“I’m just scrolling through Instagram, getting inspiration from lots of different places,” Henegar said.
Henegar said she doesn’t mind other manufacturers incorporating her artistry into their own Swift-inspired products. “It’s nice if they can just credit me on their Instagram posts,” she said.
While Cookie in the Kitchen, Sparta Candle Co. and Sewrella Yarn primarily serve their customers through their websites and/or physical stores, many small businesses focusing on Taylor Swift-oriented products are turning to Etsy and other services online focused on art and crafts. markets to reach fans.
“I mean, talk about bringing people together and talk about really amplifying creativity,” Etsy trends expert Dayna Isom Johnson said of Swift’s impact on the platform.
Johnson said entrepreneurs on Etsy don’t just come up with sales concepts ahead of album releases and the artist’s tour dates. They also react quickly to what Swift sings, says, and wears.
For example, Swift’s lyrics “So make friendship bracelets” in her 2022 song “You’re on Your Own, Kid” created unprecedented demand for friendship bracelets on Etsy. (According to company data, while Swift was touring across the United States in 2023, he saw a 22,313% increase in searches for concert-inspired friendship bracelets.)
A selection of Taylor Swift themed friendship bracelets on Etsy.
CustomBraceletWorld/Etsy
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A selection of Taylor Swift themed friendship bracelets on Etsy.
CustomBraceletWorld/Etsy
Etsy saw a similar spike in searches after Swift wore an unusual choker necklace to this year’s Grammys.
And this latest album, with its references to poetry — “You’re not Dylan Thomas, I’m not Patti Smith” — turned Swifties into budding poets; suddenly, everyone wants a blank journal.
“We saw a 727% increase in searches on Etsy for poetry-related items,” Johnson said.
Swift’s response to fan creativity
Swift herself seems to embrace her fans’ creativity. She’s known for sending notes and even homemade gifts to creative superfans.
“They constantly show me their love in different ways,” she said in a 2012 video for music network VEVO. “And I really appreciate it.”
A small business owner making Swift-themed T-shirts and other items told NPR that his products have been removed from online marketplaces for possible copyright infringement.
But Jennifer Rothman, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania, said she was not aware of Swift filing lawsuits against small business owners, and she said Swift’s overall openness to creativity based on fans made business sense.
“I think Taylor Swift is just benefiting from all this enthusiasm from her fans,” Rothman said.
Music industry trade publication Pollstar estimates that Swift brought in nearly $200 million in licensed merchandise sales last year. Rothman said that most of these small-scale, highly creative riffs on the artist’s life and work often don’t intrude significantly on Swift’s brand or bottom line.
“Rather, they reinforce it by reinforcing the positive feelings around it,” Rothman said. “Fans still want the official merchandise and will queue for hours and hours to get it.”
Jennifer Vanasco edited the audio and digital versions of this story.
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