In news that may surprise some, London’s V&A museum has just announced it’s acquired a number of looks from Taylor Swift’s personal wardrobe for a brand new exhibit. “Today the V&A announces that 16 looks worn by the 14-time Grammy Award winning artist, Taylor Swift, will go on display at V&A South Kensington this summer as part of a free trail celebrating Taylor,” read the press statement.
Rather than comprise its own dedicated section in the museum, Taylor Swift – Songbook Trail will be dotted throughout multiple V&A galleries, where “Taylor’s most iconic looks” will apparently be in conversation with items from the permanent collection. Costumes on loan to the museum will include the frilly black prairie dress Swift wore in the video for her music video “Fortnight”, and a pair of spangly cowboy boots from her breakout era in 2007. Accompanying sets will be helmed by British theatre designer Tom Piper, best known for his work on the ceramic poppy installation at the Tower of London in 2014.
Elsewhere in the release, the museum says that the exhibit “will mark the success of Taylor’s UK tour and celebrate the creativity of her costumes, lyrics and music videos and explore the global phenomena of the pop icon.” Whether you like it or not, Swift’s influence on the pop canon is substantial, but it does seem odd that her first exhibition in London is set to be a looks-based one. The singer isn’t exactly known for her influence or sway in the fashion world, instead opting for palatable tour costumes that aren’t designed with any boundary-breaking slant in mind.
Though the costumes will be shown alongside “instruments, music awards, storyboards and previously unseen archival”, the fashion focus seems at odds with Swift’s career, which is not fashion focused at all. And while the V&A has hosted seminal exhibitions like Alexander McQueen’s Savage Beauty, last year’s Africa Fashion, or the current Naomi: In Fashion – which will be showing alongside Swift’s exhibit – this new addition to the roster hardly matches up to the rest.
Taylor Swift – Songbook Trail is on at the V&A South Kensington from July 27-September 8, 2024.