Adding to her best works till date, fashion has never been away from Taylor Swift’s songs. From Love Story to the warm fuzziness of Cardigan, here is an account of the mentions of iconic fashion staples evoking nostalgia and a mark of a storyteller.
Taylor swift, among other influential singers, was a household staple back in the late 2005s. Everyone was gushing about this song about two cross lovers (Romeo and Juliet) and it went down in history as one of the most listened-to songs in the 21st century. All credits go to Taylor Swift, as an artist, who brought this genius to life.
Apart from singing the lyrics on top of our lungs (off tune but you get the point!) Taylor Swift was talking about her lovers, relationships in the most confessional manner. Listening to her songs is like reading her diary. There is a sentimental value attached to it. But when you zoom in at a larger picture, one must be quite aware about the entirety of her song/video set ups- the country set up, the conventionally handsome counterpart, sunlit color scheme, wavy hair with natural make up and that huge creme satin ball gown. In this order, if you skip all the mentioned trademarks of Love Story’s signature styles, the creme satin ball gown is hard to miss. The ball gown has been iconic and has etched in a different way in everyone’s mind. This was the significance of a single garment that Swift decided to remember the song by and that’s the game nostalgia played with us!
But this was and would not be the first time or the last time, Taylor would include a piece of fashion garment as a part of her storytelling. Memories, nostalgia, heartbreaks, venge, romance and calm lyrics can be used to denote Swift’s strong narration through songs. You can see the variety she brought on the table (though one might argue that her narrative was always victimized). Taylor has played a lot with different landscapes and themes. To evoke that nostalgia pertaining to the certain narrative, Taylor added a fashion piece to make that point. I read this quote somewhere, ‘No one remembers what you look like but everyone would remember what you wore’ and Swift was making this a significant staple in her story telling. The chronology of her personal style to the hipster look for ‘Red’, editorial cuts for Blank Space and Wildest Dreams (1989), Revenge wardrobe for her ‘Reputation’ era, Romantic styling for ‘Lover’ and woolen jackets for ‘Folklore’ and ‘Evermore’. This was not just about changing looks but more or less about her growing narrative and fan base.
THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE DRESS
Swift launched her namesake album in 2006. The whole album brands her as a country girl next door on the rise. All of her looks on the album, public appearances showcased her on a range of dresses, denims and tops that were in sync with the country aesthetic. Swift was considered to be a breath of fresh air as opposed to the experienced singers with famous names. So, Swift in that white prairie dress stood out distinctively.
Then came along the album ‘Fearless’. As the title suggested, Swift aimed this album at the narration of being unhinged and strong willed. The song hints at the evolution of her cotton dress in the lyrics of the song “...I’d dance in a storm in my best dress fearless”. The dress fitting to this evolution would be the sparkly mini dress which she wore in the fearless music video. Looking at it, far away from the plain white dress, this colorful dress was what exactly defended the momentous Swift on the stage shining in her own moment. Speaking about having her own moment, Taylor showcased another youthful dress in her music video ‘Delicate’. It is a fringed dress that moves gracefully to Taylor’s moves. Again these two dresses portray Taylor’s moments in her own rights.
Moving forward, I have spoken about Love Story and the creme ball gown. It was used for great marketing of the album. Pretty princess dresses were the token that people were ready to associate with the girl next door. There was something about this dress that gave impetus to a lot of artists to use this to contemporize the renaissance ball gown. (Ariana Grande in 2013’s Right There.)
Taylor adds, “...go pick out a white dress”, adding a tone of seriousness to the song. The white dress and that too of the 2010s (when the album was released), was quite a bit of a turnover for the fusion wear style. The sleek look had not appeared yet and everyone was embracing volume for their big day. With the same topic of weddings, Taylor went on to diss her exes soon-to be a bride in ‘Speak Now’. Calling the bride’s wedding gown ‘shaped as pastry’, she expressed the ridiculous ruffled skirt of the 2010s. Look at Monique Lhuillier’s 2010 collection playing the same trend with the skirt (pictured down). Taylor further down starts to contradict herself by saying the bride walks down the aisle like a pageant queen. The mentions of pageantry when Swift does, she does with a sense of adoration. She looks at them the way people usually look at them as a collective of the world's most beautiful girls with great elegance and grace. In a “Lover” song, ‘Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince’ she highlights, pageant smile, prom dress and the scoreboard; emphasizing on the anxieties as a sixteen year old.
At this point, Swift’s narration grew stronger and somewhere she didn’t hold back when she wanted to name names. She wrote an open letter to John Mayer in ‘Dear John’ and the line ‘The girl in the dress cried the whole way home’. She denotes herself as the girl in the dress- it suggested the idea of innocence attached to it. This dig at John Mayer guaranteed how Swift wouldn’t spare some of her heartbreaks. The dress puts a greater meaning to it by attaching it to a sad sentiment. So the fit and flare style, staple to all the dresses she wore, would be the special one which she decided to wear for John. The same girl in the dress would write this song about this affair. This prairie wearing girl, now evolved into some chiffon clad elegant vintage styles (as seen in her performance video of ‘Dear John’) A daydream like landscape and someone coming in and destroying, was the implication of this central idea.
Vintage! Taylor spoke about dignity in her next bashful song, ‘Better than Revenge’. If what I read is true, this unfortunate song was targeted at Joe Jonas’ then girlfriend Camilla Belle. There’s a lot if’s in this situation while finding out the style that Taylor would be talking about in this line- ‘...but no amount of vintage dresses give you dignity’. While reading the lyrics, I had a pretty oops moment. It is laughable to what a teenager Taylor would actually think and bash. Nonetheless we have reached far. Mentioning that the girl is an actress, would do nothing but confirm that it might be Camilla. So onto the vintage style- I could see the resemblance to Camilla’s style, when the song was written, fairly on the side. She has a clean style, fuss free and on the line of being classic. Vintage, classic and timeless these words do come with a sense of dignity attached to it. ‘Sophistication isn’t something you wear’ Taylor added and sophistication would be the word attached to these vintage styles. At this point, the mentions of dress seem targeted. They serve as a symbol of characterization; be it wishful juliet, a disappointed girl in her pretty dress or the vintage style that would equate dignity. All the mentions speak highly of the wearer’s personality.
Swift had elaborate usage of dresses as a point of reference to how she is getting portrayed in the media. In Blank Space, the styling of dressing up in editorial pieces with a rich manor in the background put a great message- ‘you are more than what they see’. It was a way of telling her critics and mocking what was written about her. Tall cocktail dresses, skirts, high waisted trousers, preppy fit and flare dresses and the signature red lip- all fell under the guise of being ‘nightmare dressed as a daydream’.
Taylor updates her preppy look with a ‘tight little skirt’ in the song ‘Style’. The style though evolved from Red’s hipster look, Swift’s emphasis on dressing synced with Instagram's birth.
Wildest Dreams had another plethora of editorial looks ranging from safari pieces, long mustard chiffon gown, intimate lingerie (notice how it was used in Blank Space and Style’s video as a personal link) and Gala Cocktail wear. When Taylor wrote ‘Say you’ll remember me, standing in a nice dress...’ my find instantly flies back to Taylor thinking of a nice dress and dressing up for the simple (yet complicated) affair wishfully. I think the last dress in the video- the Christian Siriano dress, oozing with it’s cinematic charm must be her response to a nice dress. The significant moment at which we see Taylor rushing off after knowing that the simple affair stands nothing in reality, it builds an understanding that no amount of nice dresses or readiness would suffice for the secret love.
The song ‘Clean’ deals with so much gravity in her penmanship. The line ‘...like a wine stained dress I can’t wear anymore’ haunts the premise of the song. There’s so much to interpret here- hurt, moving on and memory. Using the dress as a greater tool of discussion, I would think of it being the A-line dresses with the fit and flare which she had meticulously worn in ‘Out of the woods’, few concerts in Speak Now, allowing her to move along the freedom of the chiffon hems. The dresses expressed a sentiment and this was what Taylor Swift was putting forward as a battle lost but in the most vulnerable manner.
Pause and take a breath for Reputation. A tight slap, that’s what I call it. It has to be one of the most daring albums in the history of music and choses to flip narrative. It somewhere was a great vehicle for the world to know that no one can exercise control over the singer/song writer’s creativity but her. The sweet dress wearing girl in the song ‘Dress’ was suddenly embracing the tight little skirt and the red lip (sorry, the black lip). Opening up to her sexuality in the song, Swift writes, ‘honey, brought this dress so you could take it off…’ and when she owns to this statement she isn’t speaking about any prairie, sparkly or preppy dress. She is talking about a dress that frees her from her past narrative. The possible category I would put this dress into would ‘Revenge Dresses’ (say hello to Princess Diana). That would be the one that Swift knows her lover would appreciate and see her as a powerful goddess rocking his world!
This would be the ideal understanding as to how a storyteller like Taylor Swift was using a simple term dress over a larger period of time. Swift used it to denote larger changes and adding it to a significant momentum to her stories. This is how Taylor gained what she would later express in her ‘Miss Americana’ documentary- ‘the hold over the creative narrative’.She did what many stars have failed to do so for a long time or have either lost their sense of purpose or decided to shift tracks and evolve into much larger exposures. Swift’s capacities lay in these smaller yet moving symbolisms. Songs like ‘Cardigan’ prove this. Using fashion as her area for making her songs more relatable. Everyone was talking about the creme ball gown and everyone would be talking about the cardigan that Swift brought in the crucial times.
Everyone was talking about the creme ball gown and everyone would be talking about the cardigan that Swift brought in the crucial times.
P.S - Images belong to their respective owners
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