Royal Swaddle Demonstrates Huge Economic Impact Of Royal Baby

The royal swaddle was such an immediate hit, it crashed the site of the fashion designer that sells it and brought a 600 percent increase in sales in just a little more than a week.

The seemingly simple item was wrapped around newborn Prince George when Kate Middleton and Prince William first brought him from the hospital for the first time. The white cotton swaddler with tiny birds on it was so popular, it took just minutes for fashion bloggers to identify it as an item from the New York-based aden + anais.

The influx of visitors caused the designer’s website to crash within four hours, and nine days later the item saw a 600 percent increase in sales, 7,000 orders altogether. The royal swaddle has been so popular in fact that the company now has a factory run from China of 10,000.

This is exactly the impact economists had predicted the royal baby would create. Prince George is expected to bring a $370 million economic impact over the course of July and August, the Centre for Retail Research predicted. Much of that is expected to come from new parents who want to buy the same gear that Kate Middleton picks out for Prince George — things like the royal swaddle.

“The people selling baby wear and nursery equipment — to them it’s very, very exciting,” said Joshua Bamfield, director of the Centre for Retail Research.

England has seen something like this before. When David and Victoria Beckham bought a stroller from iCandy for their daughter Harper, the company saw a rush in people interested in getting the same one for their babies.

Cele Otnes, author of the upcoming book Royal Fever: The British Monarchy in Consumer Culture, said getting a chance to buy the same item as the royal baby gives people a sense that they’re part of the event too.

“This is history,” she said. “If you can’t be there, if you can’t have a royal baby yourself, you can buy the swaddle.”

The royal swaddle might be hard to get a hold of for at least a little while longer. It’s still listed as sold out on the company’s website.