Now Taylor Swift is also causing museum visits to soar

Kilometer-long queues along the sidewalk that borders the London museum, also reported on social media. Worldwide media coverage. And the emulation of prestigious overseas museums. Taylor-mania is raging and conquering even the Victoria and Albert Museum, Londonone of the most important British museums: the exhibition entirely themed around Taylor Swift, the record-breaking pop star who fills stadiums, dominates the music industry and boosts the economy, is an unprecedented success. allows visitors to admire up close the clothes, objects and personal documents of all kinds of the 34-year-old American singer-songwriter. And after the museum in the British capital, overseas also the

Grammy Museum in Clevelandin Mississippi (an offshoot of the one in Los Angeles, California), is organizing an exhibition dedicated to the pop star, on the occasion of the return of the “Eras Tour” in the USA, scheduled for next October 18th in Miami after the billion dollars earned last year: the exhibition “Taylor Swift: Through the Eras” has just been inaugurated and will continue until February 2025. The one in London, on the other hand, entitled “Taylor Swift: Songbook Trail“, was opened on July 27 and will be open to visitors – free of charge – for a few more days, until September 8.

The arrangement of the exhibited relics in the 13 installations – not a random number, Swift is obsessed with it: “I was born on December 13th, my first album went gold in 13 weeks, my first hit had a 13-second intro,” she said in the past – it was curated by Tom PiperBritish stage designer who in 2015 was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire for his contribution to his country’s theatre world and was prepared in just over three monthsThe organizers, who began working on the project secretly in April, did not have time to inaugurate it on the occasion of the three London dates of the “Eras Tour” in June at Wembley Stadium (among the spectators there was also Prince William together with little George and Charlotte, with whom Swift also took a nice selfie backstage), but they were ready for the Superstar’s return to the British capitalwhich between 15 and 20 August lined up five consecutive sold outs always in the London stadium, performing in front of 460 thousand fans.

“We knew we had to be proactive. It was the quickest project I’ve ever worked on,” explains Kate Bailey of the lightning-fast timing between April and July that led to the exhibition opening. The organizers’ goal is to ensure that Taylor Swift’s very young fans who visit the exhibition take the opportunity to discover the historic British museum which includes 145 galleries and which – among other things – also has the largest collection in the world of Italian Renaissance works outside of Italy: The Victoria and Albert Museum’s monthly visitor numbers stand at 260,000, according to 2023 data. It is no coincidence that the exhibition is structured as an integrated itinerary at the London museum: the objects are positioned next to works such as the statue of Samson killing the Philistines by Vincenzo Foggini or the Raphael Tapestries. “Taylor Swift’s songs tell stories, often drawing on art and literature. We hope that this itinerary will inspire visitors to discover more about the works of the Victoria & Albert Museum,” adds the curator.

The exhibition displays objects such as the cowgirl boots that Taylor Swift used to wear in her early days as a country starlet, thecream colored Zimmerman dress worn in the video for the single “Willow”The Gucci snake-embellished boots from the “Reputation” album era and also a microphone with a snake coiled around it, the “Evermore” album cover coat designed by Stella McCartney. And then awards, video scripts and even musical instruments, starting from glitter guitar that Swift played during the Fearless Tour concerts between 2009 and 2010, with some Swarovski crystals embedded in it. The organizers of the exhibition have not yet released data on the number of visitors who have attended the exhibition since July 27, but videos have gone viral on social media immortalizing the swifties – as the pop star’s followers are called – queuing along Cromwell Road, waiting to enter the museum, which in recent weeks has also been hosting exhibitions-events dedicated to other pop icons such as Naomi Campbell and Elton John.