Taylor Swift is set to bring her mammoth Eras Tour to Dublin this weekend, so naturally anyone lucky enough to have scored a ticket is busy prepping their outfit - and possibly has been for months.
Fans will be venturing from as close as Cabra to as far as Canada to see the star perform a medley of her greatest hits from a career spanning almost two decades, so inspiration can come from any moment along that timeframe.
Taylor has conveniently divided her career into eras, each with its own distinctive look, from Fearless's gold sequins and cowboy boots to The Tortured Poets Department's Victoriana dresses.
Just as the Swifties have gathered online to dissect lyrics and uncover Easter eggs in Swift's discography, so too have they lit up social media with their Eras outfit vision boards.
The hashtag 'erastour' now has over two million hits on TikTok and hosts videos and photos showing happy attendees in these exact looks. The downside is that oftentimes, the fashion culture around concerts can focus on one-time outfits, which don’t necessarily reflect an attendees genuine personal style and so will not be worn again.
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Some fast fashion brands have even created sections on their websites called Eras Tour Outfits, offering concert goers an easy selection of new clothing pieces to shop directly and wear just once for the gig.
If a sequined dress and gold cowboy boots are going to slot in effortlessly with the rest of your wardrobe and get worn hundreds of times by you over the coming decade, then go for it. But if you want to avoid single-use clothing and contributing to landfill, there are some fun alternatives to make sure your Eras outfit screams "ME!"
One remedy that Swift fans are coming up with to avoid shopping fast fashion is making their own pieces and upcycling garments they already own. A bonus is that these pieces are special to each individual, replicating their idol’s own looks from the show - Taylor changes an average of 13 times during her eras tour - in their own way.
Beatriz Perona has been a Taylor Swift fan since around 2008, using the country-turned-pop star’s lyrics as a method to learn English in her native Spain. With a grandmother who was an embroiderer for the Spanish Holy Week holiday and a mum who used to make clothing for the family, Bea wanted to make something special of her own for the concerts, seeing Swift in both Lisbon last month and Dublin this June.
"As these concerts for me are like a dream come true and I want it to be a full experience, I wanted to make the outfits for the occasion," she said, explaining how she upcycled an old jacket of her brother’s with some sparkling fringe to make a version of one of Taylor’s jackets - Beatriz’s version, if you will.
"In my break between semesters in uni, I went back home, I had ordered all materials needed and reused my brother's old black shirt. We made the jacket she wears for the tour, the Karma jacket." She also embellished a bodysuit to go with the sparkly jacket, adding extra gems for the wow factor.
If upcycling and bedazzling is not your speed, choosing something you already own is a great base. Buying clothing for a single event promotes a wear-once mentality, and actively choosing something already in your wardrobe combats this. A sequin dress bought for a long gone New Years Eve night out is on theme for Taylor, as is your trusty denim jacket or fedora from a style era you have left behind.
Second hand clothing is another great option. Many of Taylor’s signature looks are inspired by vintage fashions - particularly the country music elements seen in many attendees outfits, like cowboy boots and hats, leathers and denims. Vintage shops also carry racks of glittering sequin dresses from the 80s and 90s, which a quick bit of clever tailoring can renew.
Floaty cottage-core dresses to represent Taylor’s Lover and Folklore eras are also constants at local vintage shops, with styles from the 70s to early 2000s emulating the singer’s romantic and cosy aesthetic from these albums. Meanwhile, echo her badass Reputation era with your staple leather jacket paired with a hint of snakeskin.
A quick search on Depop - an app where users can buy and sell second hand clothing and accessories from local and international personal storefronts - for ‘Taylor Swift’ shows many options from attendees of previous dates, selling on their concert looks or pieces they bought for the gigs but never wore.
Using this resource can help minimise the amount of new clothing bought from fast fashion retailers by choosing a "new to you" alternative.
Borrowing something from a friend or family member can save you money on a new outfit too, all while ensuring a piece of clothing gets another twirl on the dancefloor in its lifecycle.
Another aspect to the Swift concert experience is making and swapping friendship bracelets with other fans. Rather than buying a beading kit online and having it gather dust in a drawer after making your Swiftie bracelets, try charity shops for beaded jewellery you can deconstruct and reconfigure into new, sustainable bracelets that have a unique look to them to swap with fellow attendees.
These mementos will last a lifetime (due to their often plastic-based composition), as will the memories that go along with them.
The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ.
