Taylor Swift Joins V&A Museum’s Permanent Collection

The Kensington Valhalla, the Raphael Cartoons, Paul Delaroche’s St Cecilia and the Angels, the pre-Raphaelites, Foggini’s Samson and the Philistines: these are just some of the items in conversation with costumes and artefacts from Taylor Swift’s archive at a new V&A Museum exhibition. Taylor Swift: Songbook Trail presents 13 moments from across the musician’s career. Rather than containing them in a single exhibition, the pieces—including tour attire and iconic outfits from Swift’s album art and videos—are spread across the museum, engaging with the permanent collections.

“It’s the first time we’ve done this kind of theatrical installation for a contemporary artist,” said curator Kate Bailey. Organizing it required several firsts: “I’ve never displayed a microphone before,” she noted, referring to one adorned with a gold serpent designed for Swift’s 2018 Reputation tour.

The exhibition came together unusually fast, said Bailey, conceived in response to “this summer moment of Taylor Swift being in the UK” on the Eras tour—which ran in June and returns for a final London stint in August. While many fans couldn’t secure tickets to the Eras tour, the V&A exhibition is free and aims to engage younger visitors with their collections. Displaying items such as microphones and instruments, Bailey said, fits the V&A’s emphasis on creativity. “I feel very passionate about bringing that in. She’s a songwriter. This is the guitar. This is all it takes—some imagination, some talent—and you can go wherever.”

Pitching to Swift’s team was “a very creative, straightforward process,” Bailey said, with pieces drawn from Swift’s personal archive. “It’s very encouraging that she has an archive because not all artists keep their stuff and look after it so brilliantly. We were given great access.” The exhibition is described as “very poetic and literary as opposed to bombastic like Wembley will be.”

On Tuesday morning, as technicians made final touches, Bailey stood before a tableau centered on Swift’s 2019 album Lover. Against the Valhalla mosaics, all by male artists, Swift’s drag outfit, fake facial hair, and director’s chair from her self-directed video for The Man—plus her MTV Video Music award for direction—stood flanked by sculptures of Venus and Diana.

A mixture of stage costumes and lesser-seen outfits gave the exhibition “a combination of intimacy and spectacle,” Bailey said. Display elements, like the dress from the cover of Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) in the gilded music room of Norfolk House, felt authentic.

The cardigan worn in the video for Cardigan, from Swift’s 2020 lockdown album Folklore, was draped over a piano stool. “Having a mannequin didn’t feel right,” Bailey noted. “It’s more expressive on the stool—there’s the sense that she’s been here.” The piano itself was covered in real moss and softly playing birdsong to echo the album’s woodsy aesthetic. Next door, the dress from the Willow music video—from Folklore’s 2020 sister album, Evermore—contrasted with Victorian genre paintings like Francis Danby’s Disappointed Love.

Bailey was particularly taken with the black vegan leather Victoriana dress from the video for this year’s single Fortnight, from the album The Tortured Poets Department, providing a dramatic conclusion to the museum trail. “You think, why did she choose an 1890s dress as opposed to an 1870s dress?” Bailey pondered, citing the 1890s as key for the start of women’s emancipation.

Bailey curated last year’s Diva exhibition at the V&A, referencing French critic Théophile Gautier’s characterisation of the diva as “thrice gifted”—a perfect fusion of music, words, and image. “Each generation redefines the diva and she is a pioneer on so many levels,” Bailey said. What’s different with Swift, she noted, is that “you can’t separate her from the fandom. Divas are worshipped, but with Swift, that relationship is a dialogue.”

In contrast to how many pop superstars use persona—such as David Bowie, subject of a 2013 V&A show—“you always see Taylor Swift” in her outfits, Bailey said. “That’s really powerful and authentic, whether you’re looking at the country debut and her cowboy boots or any other era, it’s still absolutely Taylor.”

Taylor Swift: Songbook Trail is at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, from 27 July.

Source: The Guardian