In the ’90s, nothing was cooler than a wrist full of friendship bracelets.
A perpetual favorite at sleepaway camps, today, friendship bracelets are not just for the kids, they’re for grown-ups, too. And some come with a very adult price tag.
In a Vogue roundup of luxe friendship bracelets, one you can personalize with initials by designer Jemma Wynne fetches a cool $3,360.
Swifties weren’t the first to latch onto friendship bracelets. Ravers trade beaded ones, too, called “Kandi,” and hippies in the 1960s and ’70s were into macrame bracelets. As the Guardian notes, some sources say friendship bracelets can be traced back to the Indigenous communities of Central and South America.
Having a friend fasten one to your wrist ― after they went to all the trouble to make one ― was tangible proof that your friendships were solid and your social calendar was booked for the summer.
“If you were known for complex designs, you could gain popularity by being ‘the one who could show you how to do the chevron.’”
Growing up in Eastern Connecticut, DYI expert and YouTuber Becky Stern’s big sister first taught her how to make the knotted style with embroidery floss, before the duo graduated to making hemp bracelets. Like many ’90s kids, Stern’s memories of friendship bracelets are entwined with sleepaway camp.
“I remember racing to finish a bracelet before the week of camp ended so you could send your new camp BFF home with it,” the 39-year-old told HuffPost. “Returning to school in the fall with full wrists was a sign of a summer well-spent.”
Generally speaking, being crafty doesn’t grant you social capital at school the way being on the basketball or cheerleading team does; showing finesse when it came to the art of making friendship bracelets was the rare exception.
“If you were known for complex designs, you could gain popularity by being ‘the one who could show you how to do the chevron’ or whatever it happened to be,” Stern said. “I wasn’t generally popular at school, but sometimes felt that way at summer camp.”
Tradition holds that you’re not supposed to take off friendship bracelets until they naturally fall off your wrist or your friendship is severed ― whichever comes first ― so eventually, the bracelets tend to get a little ratty.
“I remember how gross it felt to have wet wrists after swimming or showering while wearing all those tie-on cotton bracelets,” Stern told HuffPost. “As an adult with sensory issues, I could never repeat the trend!”
Virginia Dickens, a 32-year-old comedy writer in New York City, specifically associates friendship bracelets with summer family vacations to Lake Erie, Ohio. Her family has been spending the week of July 4th there for generations, and the kids would always have a beach project to keep them busy. Gluing sea glass to picture frames, for instance, or making friendship bracelets.
Like many friendship bracelet aficionados, Dickens is quick to reference the “Klutz: Friendship Bracelets” book when asked how she learned to make them. (This was, after all, in a simpler time before YouTube tutorials.)
“You can make them anywhere ― just tape the string to a book or clipboard and knot away,” she said. “I remember making them for my parents. Sometimes they would wear them or use them as a bookmark for their beach read.”
Though friendship bracelets are favored by girls, Dickens remembers them being pretty general neutral.
“That Klutz book mostly featured girls, but ― at least at the lake in the ’90s and early ’00s ― boys and girls would make these bracelets and exchange them,” she said. “We would use ‘boy colors’ for the boy bracelets.”
In the last few years, Dickens has undergone a few surgeries. During her recovery time, she needed something to still her mind, so she reacquainted herself with the Klutz book and made friendship bracelets for her friends. (Her other recommendation for cute patterns? Friendship-bracelets.net.)
“I can make the patterns in the book pretty quickly now and finish one in a few hours ― tying the knots is like muscle memory,” she said. “I’ve made bracelets with ducks, ice cream, watermelon, and ones with super intricate patterns. It’s really fun and relaxing, and it keeps me off my phone.”
Maria Makarova, a 26-year-old crafter who goes by Masha Knots online, never grew out of making friendship bracelets, either. She’s part of an online bracelet making community that has a fun tradition where they send each other half finished bracelets and finish each other’s work.
Makarova, who lives in London, wrote a tutorial book on the craft and runs a YouTube channel where she posts weekly bracelet tutorials, challenges and discussion videos.
“Interestingly, I find that my audience online ranges from young children all the way to people in their 60s and 70s,” Makarova told HuffPost. “I always find comments from people of older generations especially heartwarming. They love sharing stories of making bracelets in their youth, and I love hearing them.”
Sarah Stearns, a 35-year professional crafter known for her crochet DIYs, said that friendship bracelets were a huge part of her ’90s midwestern childhood.
“My friends and I started a bracelet-making club in elementary school, which was really fun ― we’d meet during recess and after school before Girl Scouts,” she said.
Today, Stearns is mom to a daughter who absolutely loves friendship bracelets.
“She was so proud when she finished her first bracelet, and now makes them for her friends, older brother, and even grandma,” Stearns said. “She went to summer camp this year and came back really excited about making them. It’s cool to see her get interested in something I loved at her age.”
While sleepaway camp and Taylor Swift concerts still may be the most common place to find a friendship bracelet, in November 2023, a friendship bracelet boldly went where no friendship bracelet had gone before: Space.
That fall ― at the height of the Eras Tour craze ― astronaut and self-professed Swiftie Kellie Gerardi brought her friendship bracelets along on the Galactic 05 research mission.
“I was only the 90th woman in history to fly to space,” Gerardi told People magazine in July. “It became very important to me not to tone down my personality or femininity in an attempt to conform to society’s expectations of what a space professional should look like — instead, I wanted to expand that image to include me,” she added.
“At the end of the day, conducting science in space with a wrist full of friendship bracelets was the perfect way for me to embrace those complexities,” said Gerardi, who is also a mom to 6-year-old daughter Delta V.
Like a good ’90s kid, Gerardi traded her high-flying friendship bracelets once she was back on solid ground.
“It was also the perfect way for me to do something special for all my girlfriends who have always supported my dreams and who traveled out to my launch to cheer me on,” she said. “I was able to trade a space-flown ‘Astronaut Era’ bracelet with each of them!”
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