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Detail of a 2011 label industry achievement award highlighting Taylor Swift’s Speak Now tour and her accomplishments that year, which realized $950 plus the buyer’s premium in June 2021. Image courtesy of MusicGoldmine.com and LiveAuctioneers.

Bid Smart: Taylor Swift – a passionate collector who is also ‘collected’

Sheila Gibson Stoodley
Sheila Gibson Stoodley
A 2011 label industry achievement award highlighting Taylor Swift’s Speak Now tour and her accomplishments that year realized $950 plus the buyer’s premium in June 2021. Image courtesy of MusicGoldmine.com and LiveAuctioneers.
A 2011 label industry achievement award highlighting Taylor Swift’s Speak Now tour and her accomplishments that year realized $950 plus the buyer’s premium in June 2021. Image courtesy of MusicGoldmine.com and LiveAuctioneers.

NEW YORK — It’s no secret that music superstar Taylor Swift has a passion for antiquing. Growing up in Berks County, Pennsylvania, before moving to a Nashville suburb at age 14 to pursue music, she was surrounded by antiques. Anyone familiar with the area knows it’s the unofficial antiques capital of Pennsylvania. The region is packed with antique shops, auctions, and shows, offering an endless supply of vintage goods dating back to the Keystone State’s colonial days.

A recent article by Country Living magazine highlighted Swift’s love of all things vintage. During the years, she has been seen shopping at collecting hotspots such as London’s Portobello Road, the Nashville Show (formerly the Music Valley Antique Show) and the Les Louvres des Antiquaires mall in Paris. In the diary notes for her Lover album, released in 2019, she noted that antiquing was a new hobby of hers. “And not just neat, organized antique stores. I really like the ones where there’s so much … to dig through, you can find absolute treasures for nothing,” she wrote.

Swift is on track to break industry records with her current tour, Eras, which is grossing ticket sales of more than $13 million a night, according to a recent report by Bloomberg News. Besides buying her music and concert tickets, many of these fans, dubbied Swifties, eagerly collect anything to do with Taylor Swift, from concert programs to clothing she has personally worn as well as Swift-signed items, particularly guitars.

Fashion is a particularly hot collecting category, and of all the available Taylor Swift memorabilia, her outfits tend to bring the highest prices.

Taylor Swift’s personally-worn blue two-piece outfit from a 2015 outing in New York City earned $2,816 including the buyer’s premium in August 2019. Image courtesy of RR Auction and LiveAuctioneers.
Taylor Swift’s personally-worn blue two-piece outfit from a 2015 outing in New York City earned $2,816 including the buyer’s premium in August 2019. Image courtesy of RR Auction and LiveAuctioneers.

Swift’s fashion style has evolved since her breakout album in 2006. She’s well known for romantic and ultra-feminine dresses on the red carpet but has recently become more daring, choosing plunging necklines and form-fitting looks or menswear-inspired styles. A two-piece baby blue outfit she wore in 2015 on a date with Calvin Harris in New York City sold for $2,816, including the buyer’s premium, in August 2019 at RR Auction. The blue floral-patterned crop top with a scoop neckline was paired with a matching high-waisted skirt. Swift was photographed by paparazzi wearing this outfit outside the since-shuttered L’asso Pizza in New York’s Little Italy neighborhood. Provenance was established by the photos as well as a certificate of authenticity stating that the outfit came to auction from a person who bought it from one of Swift’s stylists.

With early songs such as Teardrops on My Guitar, Swift gained fame for her guitar-playing as well as her songwriting and vocal talent. Today, her main instrument is her voice, especially in concerts, but she still does play the guitar. During the years, she has owned many guitars and signed more than a few for charitable causes. In June 2023, Rolling Stone magazine reported that a Swift-signed guitar achieved $120,000 at Toby Keith and Friends’ 2023 OK Kids Korral auction to benefit children dealing with cancer.

Many of her guitars have been purchased at much more reasonable sums, however. One of her acoustic guitars sold for $2,250 plus the buyer’s premium in May 2018 at Julien’s Auctions. The Taylor model 210ce guitar was signed on the body in black marker, “Taylor Swift [heart] 89.”

A Taylor Swift-signed guitar brought $2,250 plus the buyer’s premium in May 2018 at Julien’s Auctions. Image courtesy of Julien’s Auctions and LiveAuctioneers.
A Taylor Swift-signed guitar brought $2,250 plus the buyer’s premium in May 2018 at Julien’s Auctions. Image courtesy of Julien’s Auctions and LiveAuctioneers.

Jewelry and fashion accessories personally worn by Swift are also hot collectibles. Especially enticing to buyers are those worn for photo shoots, in her videos or at key awards shows. Back in 2011, Teen Vogue was planning a shoot with Swift for its August cover and wanted insect-themed jewelry. A magazine rep reached out to a jeweler via her Etsy store and borrowed an artisan-made beetle brooch. It later sold at auction at GWS Auctions Inc.in August 2018 for $1,800 plus the buyer’s premium. The brooch was put into a framed display including “thank you” notes from the Teen Vogue rep.

Taylor Swift wore an artisan-made beetle brooch on the August 2011 cover of ‘Teen Vogue.’ The brooch, borrowed for the photo shoot, was returned to the owner and later sold in August 2018 for $1,800 plus the buyer’s premium. Image courtesy of GWS Auctions Inc. and LiveAuctioneers.
Taylor Swift wore an artisan-made beetle brooch on the August 2011 cover of ‘Teen Vogue.’ The brooch, borrowed for the photo shoot, was returned to the owner and later sold in August 2018 for $1,800 plus the buyer’s premium. Image courtesy of GWS Auctions Inc. and LiveAuctioneers.

Another signature Taylor Swift fashion accessory is her fedora hats, and she often plucks them off her head during concerts to give to a lucky fan. When her career was just taking off, she wore a fedora hat to her first commercial photo shoot. The year was 2008, and she wore a woven rattan fedora in the ad for LEI Jeans. The hat, signed with her name on the underside of the brim, was later donated to the Central Appalachian Fine Arts Project to benefit its art education programs. Accompanied by a framed photo display to establish authenticity, the hat brought $1,300 plus the buyer’s premium in March 2022 at GWS Auctions Inc.

A Taylor Swift-signed fedora, which she wore during her first commercial photo shoot, went for $1,300 plus the buyer’s premium in March 2022. Image courtesy of GWS Auctions Inc. and LiveAuctioneers.
A Taylor Swift-signed fedora, which she wore during her first commercial photo shoot, went for $1,300 plus the buyer’s premium in March 2022. Image courtesy of GWS Auctions Inc. and LiveAuctioneers.

Given her fame, just about any item associated with Swift is sure to attract interest from buyers. The year 2011 was big for her: awards she won that year include Artist of the Year at the American Music Awards, the Country Music Association’s Entertainer of the Year for the second time and Billboard’s Woman of the Year. Her Speak Now world tour was also a hit, selling 1.3 million tickets. In that same year, a special artist management award was given to a radio executive who helped Swift launch her career. In June 2021, the framed award sold for $950 plus the buyer’s premium at MusicGoldmine.com.

With 10 studio albums under her belt and her Eras tour — which is set to conclude in August 2024 in London — chalking up one success after another, Taylor Swift is riding high in her career. Collectors have plenty of memorabilia and Swift-signed material available to them now, and they can be confident that more will appear in the years to come.