In case you occur to seek out your self at London’s Victoria & Albert Museum this summer time, don’t be stunned should you see flocks of Swifties, dressed of their Eras tour costumes and sporting stacks upon stacks of friendship bracelets, speeding by means of the cavernous halls of the South Kensington establishment. The rationale? “Taylor Swift: Songbook Trail,” a brand new free exhibition which sees 16 of the 14-time Grammy-winning pop powerhouse’s most memorable seems to be—from throughout her music movies, excursions, album covers, red-carpet appearances, and all 11 eras—go on show alongside devices, awards, and storyboards from her private archive, a few of which have by no means been seen earlier than.
Crucially, although, this isn’t one of many V&A’s standalone exhibitions, however one for which installations are dotted across the whole museum itself, with every showcase opening up a captivating dialogue with the constructing’s structure and everlasting objects, and sending guests on an exhilarating treasure hunt as they wind previous Renaissance sculptures, medieval tapestries, and 18th-century work looking for the following Swiftian curio. Every of the 13 stops—designed to be non-chronological, just like the Eras tour earlier than it—options fittingly theatrical shows crafted by Tom Piper, greatest recognized for his work for the Royal Shakespeare Firm, in addition to for surrounding the Tower of London with poppies, whereas Kate Bailey, the museum’s senior curator for theater and efficiency, has overseen the entire venture, seeding in Easter eggs and making certain every chapter builds on our understanding of this often-mythical-seeming determine.
Whereas Taylor herself wasn’t concerned in choosing the objects on present, Bailey says her archive was extremely beneficiant in giving her free reign, a lot in order that one of many fundamental challenges was modifying down her picks to only one or two clothes per period. There was additionally the matter of timing—turning the exhibition round in just a few months, in order that it may each incorporate The Tortured Poets Division period and coincide with the second leg of the Eras tour in London—and the necessity for collaboration. “That is one thing which has truly concerned the entire museum,” she tells me. “I’ve been working with colleagues throughout completely different departments and interesting curators in several galleries to open up these historic areas. And that was difficult as a result of, in lots of instances, these had been issues we’d by no means completed earlier than.” Her objective, she says, was to create one thing that, “like Taylor’s exhibits, combines spectacle with that feeling of intimacy.”
The primary cease on the tour is a working example. Enter the museum by means of the grand archway on Cromwell Highway, flip left, and make your means up two flights of stairs to the primary period: Lover. Right here, you’ll discover the silk Versace shirt and loafers Taylor sported in her self-directed music video for “The Man” in 2020, alongside the wig and facial hair which remodeled her right into a millionaire playboy, her director’s chair from the set, the best-director VMA she scooped for her efforts, and a loop of the video itself.