EDITOR’S NOTE Featuring the good, the unhealthy and the ugly, ‘Look of the Week’ is a daily sequence devoted to unpacking the most talked about outfit of the final seven days.
With Taylor Swift, a brand new album unveils a brand new “era,” and a brand new era dictates a brand new costume. This time, she embodies the dazzling spirit of a Las Vegas dancer for her upcoming album “The Life of a Showgirl.”
It’s a far cry from the woolen overcoats and broderie-anglais clothes of “Folklore” (2020), or the copper baker boy hats of “Red” (2012). But on this document, Swift is interrogating an more and more massive half of her life — her expertise as a world-famous pop star and lacquered performer. In 2024, her “Era’s Tour,” which happened in 51 cities throughout 5 continents, turned the highest-grossing tour of all time. On “New Heights,” the podcast her boyfriend Travis Kelce runs together with his older brother Jason, Swift mentioned she wrote the album throughout the tour’s European leg. “Literally living the life of a showgirl,” mentioned Travis Kelce. “It’s the life behind it all, it’s the life beyond the show,” mentioned Swift.
On the cowl of the document, the singer is wearing a crystal embellished demi-bra with webs of jewels trailing down her torso and submerged in what seems to be a tub. In one other picture, she poses with her arms huge in one other showgirl-inspired outfit coated in glowing gems. But the sexed-up, glamorous costumes are juxtaposed with empty theatres and chilly, inexperienced gentle, maybe a nod to the quiet, lonelier moments after all people has gone dwelling.
While the resolution to show extra pores and skin on this method is a brand new route for Swift as an artist, she isn’t the first performer to embrace the sartorial codes of this sort of entertainer. In reality, she is in glorious firm.
Modern-day pop stars have lengthy referenced the picture of the showgirl. Typically relationship again to late nineteenth century Parisian music halls, refrain women, burlesque or fan dancers had been outlined by their glamorous, usually revealing, matching outfits. The Las Vegas showgirl, which later turned its personal model totally, is now extra carefully related to crystalline cage bras, diamanté panties and tall feather headdresses.
Stars resembling Beyoncé, Katy Perry and Mariah Carey have all taken turns dressing up in the iconic garb. Carey for her 2009 music video “I Stay in Love,” Perry for “Waking up in Vegas” the identical yr and Beyoncé whereas acting at an leisure resort in Atlantic City in 2012. Christina Aguilera’s scene-stealing efficiency of “Lady Marmalade” in Moulin Rouge means she is now inextricably linked with showgirl styling. (She can be an govt producer on the theater present “Burlesque: The Musical” at present on present in London’s West End). For her 2005 tour, Kylie Minogue carried out at the very least 4 songs in a leotard dripping in crystals, a large feather bustle and an unlimited feather headdress. More not too long ago Addison Rae, whose 2025 self-titled album made the charts in each the US and UK, donned a gem-encrusted cage bra for her “High Fashion” music video.
Why have these pop stars been so drawn to the glittering facade of a showgirl? It might be the female styling, the make-up, the intricate costuming designed to captivate audiences and make the most of stage lighting. Or maybe they really feel an affinity to those hard-working dancers, outdoors of the apparent glitz and glamour: Their dedication, expertise and grit.
Last yr, night time after night time, Swift carried out for stadiums of individuals in high-octane outfits, drawing on a seemingly bottomless reserve of power. It was a grueling schedule, maybe rivalled solely by that of a Vegas showgirl. Of the album’s contents, Swift mentioned: “It’s what I was going through off-stage.” No matter what occurs in personal, each perceive the present should go on.