The Tortured Poets Department (TTPD), the new work by Taylor Swift (Pennsylvania, United States, 34 years old), has half of the internet deciphering messages and references. The singer herself announced this on her Instagram account to her 284 million followers by publishing the first video, which corresponds to the first song on the album, Fortnight: “When I was writing the music video for Fortnight, I wanted to show you the worlds that I saw in my head and that served as a backdrop to compose this music. “Practically everything on it is a metaphor or a reference to one corner or another of the album.” From the album, from her career and from her own personal life, which once again has become verses for her songs.
The star’s long-awaited work comes in the middle of a monumental tour, ‘The Eras Tour’, which is estimated to have injected some 5 billion euros into the US economy; Furthermore, with TTPD he debuts a new aesthetic. It is common for the composer to remake her appearance with the release of each album and in this case it has been no less: she veers towards a more vintage and afflicted, with marked nostalgic overtones. She is not the only one who uses this resource, which is in fact a demand from the public towards female musicians, according to what she herself said in her 2020 documentary. Miss Americana. Recently, for example, Beyoncé has made another similar change of style, embracing the aesthetic cowboy after publishing his Cowboy Carter, where his musical style turned towards country.
Swift’s eleventh studio album was released at dawn on Friday and just a few hours later, already at dawn on Saturday in Spanish time, she released the video for Fortnight, where he collaborates with rapper Post Malone. Four minutes in black and white loaded with impeccable shots, designed to be shared on social networks. Also very fashionable and with a Victorian inspiration that is not free of symbolism.
Poor creature
All the analyzes of the American’s followers (which in the few hours since the launch numbered hundreds of thousands) coincide in pointing out that Fortnight talks about the short relationship she had in 2023 with the singer of The 1975, Matty Healy. Also in that the entire video clip is aesthetically reminiscent of the film Poor Creatures. A film in which Emma Stone plays a woman modeled by a man she calls God, but who does not have the filters with which society shapes women. It seems that after conquering all the musical thrones, Swift wants to shake off any ties.
There’s more, there always is when it comes to Swift: Emma Stone is one of her best friends. They met when they were both teenagers and have supported each other in their respective careers ever since. When Stone picked up her second Oscar for best actress last February, precisely for poor creatures, He quoted a Swift song to thank his three-year-old daughter: “I love you bigger than the whole sky” (something like “I love you bigger than the sky” in Spanish), in clear allusion to bigger Than The Whole Sky, the song from the album Midnights (3am Edition).
Additionally (there’s always more), Emma Stone appears in the TTDP acknowledgments under her original name, Emily Jean Stone, specifically in the song’s acknowledgments. Florida!!! in which he collaborates with Florence Welch, of Florence and the Machine. Stone contributes, according to the script, “oddities.”
The bride’s garter
Although if there is one style that has caught attention in the video, it is the wedding dress in which she appears in the first scene. It is a strapless design in an ecru tone, made of a mix of cotton and metallic fabrics from the Australian brand Maticevski. A design that can be purchased on-line in multi-brand stores such as MyTheresa for 6,080 euros (although units of various sizes have been sold out throughout the morning). The styling unsubtly recalls the look with which he collected two Grammys last February, although the one that day was a Schiaparelli model. Taylor repeats the inspiration for the dress and also for the accessories, among which a watch as a choker stands out, both in the video and on the red carpet (the one at that moment was by Lorraine Schwartz).
For Fortnight The theatrical dress that gathers at the hips reveals a leg decorated with a white garter. An accessory that Swift has popularized with one of her most applauded outfits during ‘The Eras Tour’, a bodysuit of midnight blue rhinestones made for her by Lebanese Zuhair Murad and with which she sings the songs from her album Midnights (midnight). Everything is the work of his stylist, Joseph Cassell Falconer, with whom he has been working since 2010 and with whom he prepares both the wardrobe for the videos or concerts, and what he wears for his most important public appearances.
victorian mourning
The black mourning dress she wears after breaking a mirror dressed as a bride has also not gone unnoticed. A style that draws references from Victorian mourning at the end of the 19th century. It was precisely Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom who made white for brides and black for mourning the dead fashionable; in her case, her husband, Prince Albert, whom she honored by dressing in dark clothing during the forty years that he survived him. Swift’s mourning for Healy was much shorter than that of Victorian women, because shortly afterward she began an affair with her current partner, the American football player Travis Kelce. “The black mourning dress reached its peak during the reign of Queen Victoria,” they explain on the Metropolitan Museum’s website, “she set the tone for wearing mourning for half of her life. With these standards in place, it was considered a social requirement to wear black for between three months and two and a half years while mourning a loved one or monarch. Strict social custom existed for all classes and was available at all prices. Those who could not afford to change their clothes often altered and dyed their usual clothes black.”
The first it girl
Another of those honored in this new work is the silent film actress Clara Bow. The reference is very direct in one of the songs on the album, which is titled directly with her name. In it, Swift writes: “All your life / Did you know you’d be picked up like a rose?…. Take the glory, give everything / Promise to be dazzling.” like a rose?… Take the glory, give it your all. Bow grew up amid abuse and poverty, but became one of the biggest stars of her generation. “More than any other woman artist of her time, Clara Bow personified the most dizzying aspect of an unreal era, the roaring twenties,” read the obituary he wrote of her. The New York Times upon his death, in 1965.
In Fortnight The references are evident in the look beauty of Pennsylvania. In addition to appearing with the same tattoos on her face that Post Malone has in one of the scenes, Taylor wears obviously 1920s-inspired makeup, with very smoky eyes, extra-thin eyebrows, and lips in a much darker shade than her usual red lipstick. .
And the first poets
The Tortured Poets Department, which would mean something like “the department of tortured poets”, recalls without much effort the title of the 1989 film Dead poets society (Dead Poets Society). The name must have influenced Taylor Swift, who also wanted to remember that feature film by including two of its protagonists, Ethan Hawke and Josh Charles, by surprise in her first video. “Tortured poets, meet your colleagues on the other side of the aisle, the dead poets,” wrote the author of Reputation on their social networks.
Dozens of more or less clear and hidden references that will keep the star’s followers busy, who will be in charge of exponentially multiplying the content about his work in the coming weeks. In Fortnight, The video closes with a frame in which Taylor and Post Malone hold hands in the rain. An image also in black and white in which she wears one of the bracelets that are part of the merchandising of the new album. An identical version can be purchased on the artist’s website for $40 (about 37 euros). Because Taylor won’t let frame without a wink and because she has not become a billionaire by chance.
