Taylor Swift has triggered a global search for a discontinued Cartier Santos Demoiselle she wore in an Instagram post announcing her engagement to American Football star Travis Kelce.
Google searches spiked both this week and two weeks ago when Ms Swift first wore the watch in a podcast with her fiancé Travis Kelce.
Google Trends data for two searches: “Taylor Swift Watch” and “Taylor Swift Cartier”, shows the biggest spike for both searches began on August 12, the day that Taylor Swift announced her new album on Mr Kelce’s podcast. The top of that spike was on August 13 and returned to a more normal baseline a week later.
This week’s announcement by the happy couple caused an even steeper rise in searches, although it peaked at a slightly lower level than the August 12 album launch video.
Chrono24, the world’s largest specialist online watch marketplace, says there was a dramatic increase in searches for the Cartier watch.
“Following the news of Taylor Swift’s engagement, searches for the Cartier Santos Demoiselle on Chrono24 surged dramatically: up to 2000% in just two days compared to the days before,” Balazs Ferenczi, head of brand engagement at Chrono24, tells WatchPro.
“While the Santos Demoiselle had never appeared among the Top 10 Cartier searches before, it suddenly jumped to 4th place yesterday, right behind ‘Cartier’, ‘Cartier Santos’ and ‘Cartier Tank’,” he adds.
California-based Bezel, a trading platform for collectible watches, saw a similar surge of interest.
“In the last 24 hours, this was the most wanted ladies’ watch on Bezel — added to more wish lists than any other women’s style,” reveals Quaid Walker, the company’s CEO & co-founder.
“It was also the single most viewed listing across both men’s and women’s watches, with views surging more than 200 times its daily average and more than double the second most viewed piece. The one we had listed sold within hours of the engagement announcement,” he describes.
Atlanta-based SwissWatchExpo, one of America’s biggest pre-owned watch dealers, watched the same phenomenon unfold.
“The ‘Taylor Swift Effect’ is very real, and we saw it happen in real-time. Within a day of her wearing the Cartier Santos Demoiselle, we fielded 20-30 calls specifically asking for it,” SwissWatchExpo owner and CEO Eugene Tutunikov recalls.
There was one Cartier Santos Demoiselle Small Yellow Gold Diamond Ladies Watch in stock on the day of Ms Swift’s engagement announcement, which sold within a few hours for an undisclosed sum.
“The watch itself sold by 5 PM yesterday, and since then, over 40 people have added themselves to the waitlist for that exact model. It demonstrates how a single celebrity placement can create an immediate and intense demand for a specific timepiece,” Mr Tutunikov suggests.
Valuing the Cartier Santos Demoiselle is proving difficult because there are none to be found on any pre-owned platform.
The most recent auction sale of the piece was in March this year when Sotheby’s sold a 2006 Reference 2699 Santos Demoiselle in diamond-set yellow gold for $19,050, smashing the pre-sale estimate of $7,000 to $14,000.
Authorised Cartier retailers are jumping on the Taylor Swift bandwagon with customers bombarded with banner ads, email promotions and Instagram adverts for similar models that can be bought today.
Advert for Goldsmiths and its retail stablemate Watches of Switzerland show two models from the new Panthere De Cartier mini quartz range, one in yellow gold with a diamond bezel selling for £26,400, the other with diamonds across its bezel and bracelet that is in stock and available for £49,700.
