For better or for worse, Swift’s relationship with Chiefs Tight End Travis Kelce has reshaped the NFL’s viewership, and even beyond that, it has brought a whole new sartorial side of the 35-year-old to the forefront.
The world is already familiar with Swift’s commercial power. She’s been known to wear specific clothing pieces while out on the town, and the next day, the item is sold out. (The glitter freckles she wore to a Chiefs are the perfect example.) Her Eras Tour became one of the highest-grossing tours on record, with revenues of more than $1 billion, for a reason so, of course, when Swift became a resident WAG of Kansas City, cheering on her boyfriend Kelce, we entered a new fashion era filled with logomania and matching designer sets.
While this is, in fact, the real world, it’s almost as if Swift exists in a fantasy, and her clothes also tell the story of her romantic fairytale. Her Romeo, starkly different from her past lovers, exists in a dream sequence all new to her character. But it’s pivotal that her fashion choices still work for her narrative.
“Fashion obviously plays a role,” Teen Vogue‘s associate director of culture and long-time Swiftie Claire Dodson says. “The Eras Tour is sort of the encapsulation of that – each album era has a personal aesthetic to go alongside it in our cultural memory. The dainty Kennedy-wannabe sets from Red, that 1989 backward harness, the bold, tightly-tailored sparkly Midnights vibe at awards shows. She likes a mix of high-low in her style and that directly mirrors the tension between how she’s seen by the public and how she might want to be seen — who she was as a teenager versus who she is now.”
“Her core musical identity is putting the right, specific words to universal life experiences,” Dodson continues. “Relatability is an overused word when it comes to her style and music, but her most important talent is as a writer who can capture these experiences and make you go, ‘Ugh, that’s exactly how it felt when…’ Simultaneously, she’s a billionaire, the biggest pop star on the planet right now, powerful in so many ways. Her fashion choices reflect that struggle between remaining casual, accessible, and enjoying the trappings of being in the one percent.”
