The exhibition (Taylor's version)
A canny move from the V&A
In news that will probably surprise absolutely no one, the increasingly pop-culture savvy V&A has announced that it is to leap onto the Eras juggernaut with a new exhibition, Taylor Swift | Songbook Trail. I have no idea how well their rather gushy Naomi Campbell show is selling, but if they want to boost visitor numbers then this free display should absolutely obliterate them.
Opening on July 27 and running to September 8, the exhibition will consist of 13 of Tay-tay’s ‘iconic looks’, each representing a chapter of her songwriting career, from the frilly, mermaid-hair-and-cowboy-boots era to the most recent, with the black Victoriana-number worn in the music video to her latest single, Fortnight.
They’ll be displayed theatrically, we’re told, in keeping with the bombast of the current tour (she’s back in August), as interventions throughout the V&A and, apparently, ‘in dialogue’ with the museum’s objects and spaces.
The trail is being staged by award-winning designer Tom Piper, who also did the museum’s very fun Alice: Curiouser and Curiouser exhibition, and the Tower of London poppies, so he knows his way around this kind of thing.
Sure, it feels a tad gimmicky, but I’m all for it. It’ll bring new visitors into the museum, and you never know, it might plant in the odd passing Swiftie a kernel of passion for medieval Italian wedding chests, or 17th century silver automata. We can but dream.