Taylor Swift wore Oscar de la Renta at this year’s Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute Gala Benefit.
She
deaccessioned her twang, slipped the bonds of country music and traded
her Nashville home (where America’s songbird sometimes received visitors
in a human-sized birdcage, a décor touch ripe for analysis) for a loft
in TriBeCa. She released a best-selling album, took on Spotify,
performed at the Victoria’s Secret show and turned a tabloid reputation
for man-trap desperation on its head, emerging as a single-and-loving-it
cheerleader for girl power.
The
young woman who wrote, not long ago, about idling unappreciated on the
sidelines, passed over by the would-be boyfriend in favor of the
proverbial cheerleader, has become both the most popular girl around,
with a clique of BFFs — including Karlie Kloss, Lena Dunham and Lorde —
in her corner.
Ms.
Swift’s latest album, “1989,” her first under the aegis of pop, arrived
in October and in its first week sold 1.287 million copies, more than
any of her competitors in first-week sales, and more than any album in
that time period since 2002.
Ms.
Swift now sits at the head of the popular table — accessorized with a
new haircut and a subtly but distinctly updated sense of style, a
sharpened version of her country-mouse retro look of yore — where the
goings-on are visible to all via Instagram. There, Ms. Swift’s 15.8
million followers can glimpse her and Ms. Kloss having a Motown-and-makeup dance party as they prep for the Met Gala; her and Hailee Steinfeld baking cookies.
Around midnight on Oct. 27, the date “1989” dropped, social media echoed with the praise of her famous friends.
“OMG 1989 IS OUT WHAT A DAY. so proud of my sista,” tweeted Lorde.
“It’s
happening people — @TaylorSwift’s album is out now. She is a true
friend/true artist and the only person who makes me wanna exult in
nature. Very proud. This record will blow you away,” posted Ms. Dunham on Instagram, alongside a picture of her and Ms. Swift nuzzling on a beach.
“I
think she’s made friendship cool,” said Cindi Leive, the editor of
Glamour, the first big fashion magazine to put Ms. Swift on its cover,
back in 2009. (Ms. Swift returned three times after that, including for
Glamour’s 75th anniversary issue this spring. That issue became the
magazine’s newsstand best-seller of the year, according to data from the
Alliance for Audited Media.)“That’s sort of how women live now,” Ms.
Leive said. “Everyone’s getting married later, but they don’t
necessarily live close to their family. Your girl pack, your posse, is
much more important than it might have been 5 or 10 years ago. I think
she’s tapped into that in a really powerful way.”
Ms. Swift was by no means unfamous or unloved before — winning armfuls of Grammys and Country Music Association Awards and topping charts — but the world is crowding to her party now. Rolling Stone touted “The Reinvention of Taylor Swift.” Time magazine paid tribute to “The Power of Taylor Swift.” For BloombergBusinessweek, she is nothing less than the music industry itself.
Fashion,
despite its habitual readiness to rally around a pop star, may be the
one latecomer to Ms. Swift’s party. Beyoncé, Rihanna, Katy Perry and
Lady Gaga have all been courted by megabrands, seated front row and
dressed in custom creations on tour. The Council of Fashion Designers of
America crowned Rihanna and Lady Gaga fashion icons; Puma announced
Tuesday that Rihanna would also be its women’s creative director.
By contrast, Ms. Swift has generally kept her own counsel (and that of her longtime stylist, Joseph Cassell).
Her patronage has been a boon for smaller labels.
“She’s
appealing to a broader range of people now,” said Jordana Warmflash,
the designer of Novis, an upstart New York label, whose block-plaid Kandinsky coat immediately
began generating press and selling on her website when Ms. Swift wore
it. “I don’t think that the teen population is really buying $2,000
coats.”
For
the red carpet, Ms. Swift has returned time and again to J. Mendel,
whose luxurious image is somewhat at odds with her former country image.
Gilles Mendel, its creative director, dressed Ms. Swift and took her as
his date to the Met Gala in 2011 and 2013. (At this year’s Gala, Ms.
Swift attended with Oscar de la Renta, who custom-made a gown for her.)
Both
Ms. Warmflash and Mr. Mendel said that her style has evolved in recent
years. Ms. Swift and Mr. Cassell have endeavored to make it “a little
bit more fashion-forward than it had been before,” Ms. Warmflash said.
(“I’m not sure if I’m supposed to say this,” Ms. Warmflash added, “but I
didn’t really realize how big of a deal she was.”)
“Her
direction has been very, very inspiring in many ways,” Mr. Mendel said
last week, at a presentation of his prefall collection, where the model
in the accompanying photos bore a more-than-passing resemblance to Ms.
Swift. “Even though we live in a different world and people from the
outside say ‘Taylor Swift?’ ”
Would the rest of the fashion world soon be playing catch-up? “Absolutely,” Mr. Mendel said.
The needle may already be moving.
In December, at the Billboard Women in Music Awards luncheon, where she was celebrated as the magazine’s Woman of the Year,
a Vogue reporter was seen trailing Ms. Swift, in apparent preparation
for a profile. (When Ms. Swift made her only appearance on Vogue’s cover
in 2012, the magazine promised “A Cool New Look,” suggesting a bit of
necessary style rehab.)
And
Michael Kors, who dressed Ms. Swift for the American Music Awards in
November in a gown that honored her signature style predilection — to
bare her midriff but not her navel — recently cited her as one of the
muses of his pre-fall collection. It included a very Swiftian polka-dot
bikini, revealing that same tasteful slice of lower rib cage.
“I
think that in general it’s probably a little bit harder for an American
pop star who originally comes from country to get taken seriously in
the fashion world,” Ms. Leive said. “But at this point, she’s got
nothing left to prove.”
