Taylor Swift’s TNT tennis bracelet was fashioned by a Lancaster-based jewelry company
Wove's site traffic increased 2,260% after Taylor Swift was spotted Sunday night wearing the company's custom tennis bracelet
Taylor Swift’s yellow gold and diamond tennis bracelet with the initials TNT was first spotted Sunday night, when her boyfriend and Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce swept her up in a celebratory embrace minutes after the Chiefs clinched a spot in Super Bowl LVIII.
Questions flew. Is TNT the couple’s pet name for each other? Will TNT be to Gen Z what Bennifer was to Gen X?
The speculation, however, doesn’t compare to the explosive sales at Wove, the Lancaster-based jewelry company that fashioned Swift’s custom tennis bracelet.
“Within a 24-hour period, we saw a 2,260% increase in site traffic,” said Susan Bali, head of marketing at Wove. Sales jumped 477% that day, too. “We made the bracelet late last year for Travis [to give Taylor] and we’ve been keeping it under wraps for a while. As soon as she wore it, the internet went crazy. From Sunday night until [Tuesday], it’s been a whirlwind.”
The dainty diamond bauble with its sparkling smiley faced charms is part of a collaboration between Wove and pro-golfer Michelle Wie West. Six months ago, Wove founders and West Point classmates Brian Elliott and Andrew Wolgemuth collaborated with West to create a collection featuring initials with diamond earrings, necklaces, and bracelets available in gold, yellow gold, and rose gold — starting price: $5,680 for a bracelet.
“The bracelet you see on Taylor is a customized version of the bracelet Wove in-house designer Kendall Junck worked on with Michelle,” Bali explained.
Junck was inspired by the friendship bracelets Swift fans wore to “The Eras Tour” and worked on the designs with West shortly after seeing Swift in concert. Turns out West and Kelce are friends, so imagine everyone’s surprise when Kelce special-ordered not just one bracelet for Swift, but one for himself, too. (Yep, TNT is definitely a thing.)
“Talk about a full circle moment,” Bali said.
Wolgemuth, whose parents own Koser Jewelers in Lancaster, helped his fellow servicemen design engagement rings for their fiancés while stationed in Afghanistan. The servicemen wanted to have rings in hand for their dreamy, just-got-off the plane proposals, but sending diamonds through the mail was risky and impractical. So Woglemuth made 3-D replicas of the rings for the servicemen to use.
Influenced by Warby Parker — the eyewear company that lets shoppers try before they buy — Woglemuth tried his hand at providing a similar service to prospective wedding ring buyers when he got out of the service. Why not offer them a deep fake ring to try on before committing to the real thing? He called Elliott, who had a bad experience buying engagement rings from a mall store a few years earlier, and launched the online retail store Wove in 2022. Buyers take an online quiz and are paired with an in-house Wove designer. Couples often work on their rings together, taking the patriarchy out of the process.
Wove obtained $3.85 million in seed money from Springdale Ventures in 2022, according to Tech Crunch. The company produces thousands of rings a year, averaging $10,000 a piece. (The average engagement ring is $6,000). Revenue has grown five times.
Still, no one at Wove imagined the very famous Swift would be wearing the custom bracelet she received from her very famous boyfriend after a very important NFL championship game. And that there would be a kiss involved. You can’t beat that marketing.
“Ever since we made the bracelet, we’ve been watching every game, checking to see if she was wearing the bracelet,” Bali said. “It was a waiting game, but it was exciting.”