Taylor Swift’s Era’s tour sparked a 357 per cent spike in searches for sequined dresses, statistics reveal.
The American pop star’s appearances in London, Cardiff, Edinburgh, and Liverpool in June saw her fashion style sweep the nation.
This included department store John Lewis reporting the massive surge for sparkly sequined night dresses between June 7 and June 22 which coincided with the first leg of Swift’s tour.
Swift’s ‘Swifties’, the affectionate nickname for her fans, also caused a 98 per cent jump in sequined skirt searches.
In July, economists argued that due to the popularity of Swift’s tour, inflation stayed at 2 per cent rather than dropping, because of a surge in buying meals out, booking hotel rooms and hiring hire cars.
Laura Suter, director of personal finance at investment firm AJ Bell, said at the time: ‘Bank of England policymakers may be cursing Taylor Swift, as fans spending on hotel rooms and in restaurants during her Eras tour is likely to be one reason that prices rose in June, meaning that overall inflation flatlined at 2 per cent rather than fell.’
Swift’s ‘Swifties’, the affectionate nickname for her fans, have caused a 98 per cent jump in sequined skirt searches
John Lewis reported a massive surge for sparkly sequined night dresses during the first leg of Swift’s tour
Swifties outfits are inspired by Taylor’s tour outfits as the star wears sparkles and feathers every night
Swift’s effect on Britain’s fashion sense emerged as part of an overall breakdown on what Britons bought in 2024.
Unsurprisingly perhaps, one of the big pulls was the Euro finals in July when England narrowly lost to Spain 2-1, but fans spent £10 million on pints, a record for a Sunday.
But in a sign that it is not all booze and football in England, young healthy eaters contributed to a 17.5 per cent rise in cucumber sales after being influenced by recipes posted on TikTok.
In August, a cucumber salad recipe from Logan Moffitt known as the ‘Cucumber Guy’ who has 4.8 million social media followers, is so popular farmers in Iceland struggle to keep up with demand.
However, it was the year of the air fryers which rocketed to being the third most popular kitchen appliance in Britain by September trailing only behind the trusty toaster and the microwave oven.
Come the end of the summer and the rains of September, couples and families were forced to stay indoors and took to hot chocolate to keep their spirits up.
Hot chocolate sales surged by 28 per cent that month and soup by 10 per cent, with ingredients for home baking seeing a 7 per cent increase.
The best-selling book of the year on Amazon was Freida McFadden’s The Housemaid, which is about the shadowy handmaiden Millie Calloway who works for the rich Nina Winchester despite her criminal past.
It was also a good year for Rory Stewart, the former Conservative politician, whose memoir Politics On The Edge topped the biography category.