A vintage t-shirt Taylor Swift wore in her Life of a Showgirl film has snowballed into Swifties raising over $2 million for the Monterey Bay Aquarium, its Sea Otter Program, and other conservation efforts.
To go back to the beginning: At one point in The Official Release Party of a Showgirl, Swift is seen wearing a elegantly faded Monterey Bay Aquarium shirt with a charming encyclopedia-style illustrated graphic for sea otters. It’s got the animal’s latin name “Enhydra lutris,” some anatomical stats, and even an illustrated list of favorite foods.
It is, on its own, a very cool shirt, but for Swift’s fans it also resonated with the revelation that she and fiancé Travis Kelce share a deep love of otters. During Swift’s appearance on Kelce’s New Heights podcast with his brother, Jason, Swift said: “All I really use the internet for is sourdough and when Travis shows me videos of otters on his Instagram algorithm.” (Kelce then revealed his wish to have, as a pet, a wild otter that he’s rescued.)
After the Release Party of a Showgirl film premiered, the Monterey Bay Aquarium was flooded with questions about the t-shirt. So, they tracked down the original artwork from 1993 to print a new batch, then made them available as part of a limited-time fundraising campaign for a minimum donation of $65.13 (the extra 13 cents of course being a nod to Swift’s favorite number).
Unsurprisingly, the campaign surpassed its $1.3 million goal in just seven hours, with the Monterey Bay Aquarium eventually putting the shirts on backorder due to the incredible demand. As of publication today (Oct. 17), the aquarium is still raking in money with over $2 million and counting.
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“Your response was beyond our Wildest Dreams,” the aquarium wrote in a statement stuffed with Swift puns. “We hear you loud and clear, and we’re so grateful for the All Too Well kind of love this fundraising campaign as received.”
As the Monterey Bay Aquarium also noted on its website, there are several other unique connections between the the aquarium, its otters, and Swift, though whether it’s just a coincidence or an Easter egg is up for fans to decide. For instance, just last month, the aquarium commissioned a local musician Taylor Safina to write up an otter rescue-themed song, which wound up being an homage of sorts to Swift’s “The Alchemy.” Even more striking, though, are the sea otters at the Monterey Bay Aquarium that happen to have Swift-adjacent names: Ivy (like on Evermore) and Opal (as in “Opalinte”).
