Untitled

TAYLOR SWIFT STYLE – LOVER FEST

Halpern Spring 2017

• Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince
• You Need To Calm Down
• The Man
• Blank Space

I think one of the hardest parts of this series was trying to determine what song would open the tour. Taylor has a strong history of choosing the opening track of the album also as the opening song for the tour (see: RED Tour, 1989 Tour, Reputation Tour). But as was the case when I was writing the TSS Lover Track by Track (it’s coming! it is coming SO SOON) I redid the tracklist, bumping “I Forgot That You Existed” from the opening slot; a position I think the song is unworthy of having. But in considering everything that the disjointed Lover era has thus far represented, I think the most poignant is the revealing documentary for which this song was named and the many choices Taylor has taken to be more vocally supportive of her beliefs and stances (Stonewall performance, voters rights, Equality Act, her entire Billboard Women In Music speech, Sco[ot]ter drama). This song is moody, mature, well-spoken and sets a really strong tone for where Taylor is currently at in her life.

In coupling other songs to follow “MA&THP” I thought about songs that took similar, bold (for Taylor) stances. “YNTCD” being her most outright support for the LGBTQ community (even more dedicated than the line in “Welcome To New York”), “The Man” which tackles her career-long sexist double-standards in the music industry and her personal dating life, and the iconic “Blank Space” which Taylor described herself as a song “so tongue in cheek, that if people don’t get the joke, they don’t deserve to have the joke explained to them.”

Beyond just all of this setlist consideration, I had to think of what that one outfit that could best fit in with all of these incredibly important songs look like — not just to represent the nature of these songs, but to also serve as the most photographed look of the tour (tour photographers typically only are permitted to take photographs during the first 3-5 songs of a show so as not to continue interfering with the concert-going experience). So it had to look good, be immediately recognizable and show-ready (all those stagelights) but also be bold, feminine, strong, Taylor Swiftian, and just a little bit gay. Enter: rainbow sequin jumpsuit. While I definitely have a good share of suits planned for later in the setlist, and one could have easily imagined a suit here to be worn during “The Man”, a jumpsuit felt like a great compromise.