Taylor Swift’s Iconic Costumes Featured In Pop-Up Exhibit At Nashville’s Country Music Hall Of Fame

The pop-up display, showcasing Taylor Swift’s wardrobe through the years, opens as tens of thousands pour into downtown Nashville this weekend for her three back-to-back sold out shows at Nissan Stadium. The Through Taylor Swift’s Eras museum exhibit itself, however, will remain open through the entire month of May.

For the cost of a regular Country Music Hall of Fame admission, visitors can get a close-up look at 10 of Swift’s iconic outfits representing each of her 10 albums from her 2006 Taylor Swift to last year’s Midnights. Swift, a 12-time GRAMMY winner, has famously reinvented herself with every new album from changes in musical direction to fashion and costuming.

Featured outfits include the Marina-Toybina-designed circus ringmaster ensemble with top hat, cane, rhinestone and sequin-embellished jacket, shorts and knee-high laced boots Swift wore to perform “We’re Never Getting Back Together” at the 2012 MTV Europe Music Awards.”

There’s the Mandalay fringe dress with beads and sequins she wore with boots during her “Fearless Tour” in 2009-2010.

And the Vivetta faux fur jacket and rhinestone-accented bikini Swift wore in the 2019 music video for “You Need to Calm Down.”

Dedicated fans, many of whom have followed her throughout her entire career, are known as Swifties and maintain a special bond with the singer/songwriter. Nashville’s Morgan Blair has seen Swift in concert 14 times and will see her again, twice, over the weekend.

“I was so excited to hear the CMHOF was doing a new exhibit and definitely plan to check it out sometime this month,” Blair says. “Seeing those outfits is so nostalgic for me. They transport me back in time. I was in fourth grade with I picked up her album and I’m 26 now, so each outfit really represents a different era in my life that coincided with hers. I still remember seeing her wear her ringmaster costume at the Red Tour at the Bridgestone.”

Swift, who got her start in country music as a teenager, has close ties to Nashville and a strong connection with the Country Music Hall of Fame.

“The museum has a long-standing relationship with Taylor Swift that dates, quite literally, to the start of her career,” says Angela Zimmer, writer-editor at the CMHOF. “She ceremonially signed her first record deal in our building in 2005. And in 2012, she made a generous donation to the museum’s capital campaign, to build the Taylor Swift Education Center, which opened in 2013.”

That education center has 7,500 square feet of classrooms, learning labs, and interactive galleries, with events for school students, families, and individuals, much of it focused on songwriting. Over the past decade, Swift has continued to share new items with the education center representing unique aspects of her career. One of her newest contributions is the cap and gown she wore when she received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree and delivered the commencement address at New York University’s graduation ceremony in May of 2022.

The Taylor Swift Education Center is permanently housed on the museum’s 3^rd floor with the pop-up exhibit in another part of the museum for a limited time.

“With Swift playing three sold-out Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour concerts only a few blocks from the museum this weekend,” Zimmer says, “it’s the perfect time to celebrate her prolific career and ever-evolving sound and style.”

Swift’s contributions to country music are noted in other parts of the museum such as the Sing Me Back Home exhibit, and the annual American Currents: State of the Music section.

Swift’s three shows in Nashville is part of her current 52-concert stadium tour that began in mid-March and continues through August.

The pop-up display highlighting her outfits will remain open through May 31st.