Just when you thought Taylor Swift’s media frenzy had finally died down after her last MetLife gig, the megalith pop star is reborn, this time at Manhattan’s Museum of Art and Design (MAD). On view until September 4 Taylor Swift: Storyteller exhibits dresses, guitars, jewelry and accessories that the musician has used throughout her nearly two-decade career.
After 17 years, Swift’s career continues to gain momentum. One floor below MAD’s bustling exhibit, the museum’s gift shop offers Taylor Swift merchandise to its ever-growing fanbase. Swift just performed last weekend at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, where 70,000 people filled the seats at three sold-out performances across her 52 shows. Periods visit. Additional fans listened outside the stadium.
The visitors of Taylor Swift: Storyteller are immediately greeted by an enlarged reproduction of the hand-scribbled lyrics from the 2012 hit “All Too Well” (10-minute version), the beautifully told story of a past love (Jake Gyllenhaal) who became much of the magnum of Swift opus. Towards the back, the written lyrics of “Tim McGraw” (2006), Swift’s first single which she wrote at age 14, are also painted on the wall. The small gallery space screens Swift music videos with their resounding soundtracks.
The exhibit includes two iterations of Swift’s signature “fearless dress” – the glittery fringed garment she wore with cowboy boots early in her career and revisited in later performances. (Inasmuch as Periods participating in the tour, I can confirm that the majority of fans, myself included, have attempted some form of this outfit.)
A flowing Marchesa dress from the Speak Now Tour (2010) harkens back to when Swift dressed as a princess. A red dress (2012) nods to the gritty indie style of the early 2010s (jazz shoes?!), and a 1989 suit (2014) updates the fringed suit to bright green. A Lover (2019) displays the vibrant colors she wore in music videos for the heartwarming album she wrote while dating her then-boyfriend Joe Alwyn.
One of the show’s best pieces is a frilly, sky-blue dress that Swift wore in 2007 when she opened for Tim McGraw and Faith Hill’s joint tour. She was 16 years old. It’s from BCBG Maxazria, a decidedly less “designer” mall brand than subsequent Swift outfitters. It gives more “eighth grade” than “world superstar”. The dress is both completely dated 2007 and adorably time stamped in girly teens. It comes across as a rare item from Swift’s early career and a completely bygone era in her stardom: before she had an ever-present PR team, it may have been something Swift just picked and to love.
The show isn’t quite chronological, frequently featuring seemingly random outfits side-by-side. As I meandered Over the years and the albums featured throughout the exhibition, I’ve been struck by the fact that perhaps its greatest appeal is simply Swift’s stardom – the idea that she’s touched the near 50 objects a few meters on the other side of the glass cases – not the objects themselves.
Swift is both obsessed and contemptuous of her aesthetic, constantly aware that she’s playing dress up while outwardly maintaining the same personality regardless of her current look on stage. She has a different look for each “era”, which is what she calls each of her 10 albums. At the May 19 concert in Boston that I attended, Swift admitted that creating the folk pandemic album (2020) in the style of a cabin pit in the deep woods was a way of pretending that she was not “a millennial woman living mostly on white wine”. Throughout the country, hundreds of thousands of Periods tour goers all dress up to pay homage to a specific album.
The vast majority of objects in the exhibit will only be recognized by die-hard fans. Although sparkling and over the top, the costumes, many of which have been quickly forgotten, point out that Swift’s magic lies elsewhere: in the way she writes, performs, and maintains an unwavering personality that has garnered mass admiration and amassed a brigade of fans unparalleled in music history.
Tickets for Taylor Swift: Storyteller costs $25, with admission to other museum exhibits included.
