It was the summer of 2023 and jeweler Kendall Junck was creating a collaboration jewelry collection between Wove, a startup brand, and pro golfer Michelle Wie West.
“Michelle had a little bracelet she wore that her daughter made,” Junck, the brand’s lead designer, recalled, saying the athlete suggested they make a luxury version.
“I had all of my friendship bracelets that we traded at the show on,” she told Business Insider. “So I was like, ‘OK, don’t pitch any other ideas, Michelle. That is what we’re running with.'”
Their collaboration led to the design of a diamond-encrusted, friendship-style tennis bracelet, which sells for upward of $5,680 on Wove’s website.
But Junck, West, and Wove CEO Simone Kendle never expected Swift to wear one of the bracelets, let alone at a Kansas City Chiefs game alongside her boyfriend, NFL star Travis Kelce.
“We were floored,” Kendle said of the moment her team saw Swift sporting a custom version adorned with the letters “TNT” for Taylor and Travis.
Now a staple of NFL games, Swift has prioritized supporting local businesses with her fashion choices.
In October 2023, for example, Swift dropped hundreds on vintage sweatshirts from a Kansas City boutique, leading the store owner to initially think he was experiencing a case of fraud.
In Wove’s case, things happened a little differently.
“Michelle and Travis are friends, so she told him about the bracelet she was building, and we were able to gift Taylor one,” Kendle told BI.
Kendle said Kelce chose “TNT” for the letter beads and later requested a matching one for himself.
“We wanted to make sure it looked scaled to him, so we took it upon ourselves to up the carat weight, make the beads a little bit bigger, and make it proportional to him,” she said, adding that Kelce’s bracelet was also a gift to the athlete from the brand.
Though Kendle and her team weren’t sure if Swift or Kelce would ever wear the bracelets, they spent weeks holding out hope.
“Our operations manager always sends us pictures of Taylor in the box on Sunday nights, and she’s been wearing jackets and long sweaters,” Kendle said. “Our team is like, ‘Oh my God, please just make it hot outside so we can see her wrists.'”
They got their wish in January when the Wove employee caught a glimpse of a smiley-face charm on Swift’s bracelet — the signature piece of West’s collaboration jewelry.
“The team was going crazy,” Kendle said. “We basically haven’t slept since then.”
Less than 24 hours after the game, Wove’s website traffic had increased by 2,260%, and sales went up by 477%, Kendle said. It has also received an influx of requests for custom orders.
The moment was a major one for Wove, which was founded by two Army veterans in 2022. The brand originally focused on engagement rings but now offers a wider range of jewelry.
“We are a small business based out of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, so to see Taylor, who’s also from Pennsylvania, wearing the bracelet, it’s just such a heartening moment,” Kendle said.
Equally exciting for the brand is how Swift continues to wear the piece.
She sported the sparkling bracelet as part of a $70,000 outfit at the first Chiefs game of the 2024-2025 season and again during a New York City date with Kelce this month.
She also used the sentimental bracelet to accessorize her US Open outfit over the weekend.
So, for Kendle and Junck, the connection between Wove and Swift has truly come full circle.
“The photos on our vision board in early meetings showed bracelets I had made for the concert and ones that other Swifties traded with me during the show,” Junck said. “They were all little plastic pieces with an invisible string in between. We just took the design and made it diamonds.”
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