As Taylor Swift tours the world, the singer is the subject of an exhibition opening July 27 at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Produced to coincide with the star’s world tour, the show features music videos and storyboards alongside the pop star’s costumes. Admission is free.
The exhibition “Taylor Swift / Songbook Trail” presents 16 of the singer’s iconic outfits, in time with the different stages of the artist’s journey. Taylor Swift’s instruments, awards and even personal memorabilia (photos of the young star and her family on vacation) are displayed alongside objects from the museum’s collections.
Visitors can see Taylor Swift’s stylistic evolution from her country music debut in 2007 to her current 14-time Grammy Award-winning superstardom. The iconic black dress from her latest album “Fortnight” is on display. The exhibition’s design is by Tom Piper, who is best known for an installation in the Tower of London for the centenary of Britain’s participation in the First World War in 2023.
The V&A Museum’s interest in Taylor Swift is not new. In February, the museum posted an ad on its website to recruit a “Swift superfan advisor” to help curate the exhibition. In an effort to reach a younger, pop-culture-minded audience, the V&A Museum has also recruited “a croc connoisseur,” “a tufting pioneer,” and “a drag enthusiast.”
Recently, the Museum of Arts and Design in New York dedicated an entire floor to the exhibition “Taylor Swift: Storyteller” (May 2023-March 2024) on the star’s costumes, accessories and jewelry. Both exhibitions on Taylor Swift are the initiative of Taylor Swift’s production company “13 Management”. Both exhibitions were launched during the ticket sales of “Eras Tour”, the star’s world tour which began in March 2024. The sales revenue of the tour amounted to more than $1 billion in December 2023 and is expected to reach $2 billion by the end of the tour (November 2024), a record in the history of music.
Founded in 1852, the Victoria and Albert Museum is a 30,000 m2 art and design museum located in South Kensington, London. The world’s largest museum of decorative arts and design, it has a collection of over 4 million objects and a significant collection of paintings and sculpture spread across 145 galleries.
