by Frank Kogan
Taylor Swift. Teenager, country music. She always wear dresses. But what do the dresses mean?
I’m impaired talking about women’s dresses, impaired because I’m a guy and impaired because I developed a habit early on in my traumatic adolescence of not comprehending what I was seeing, of turning off the brain inside my eyes: The way I dealt with fashion was not to think about it.
So, last Friday night I was in a coffeehouse, sitting across from my gorgeous friend Keenan, who’s never heard
She’s right, of course. So I try to describe the adventure I’d discovered that afternoon on YouTube: Taylor Swift coming onstage, whether it’s in the bright daylight of California’s Central Valley or in the dark red nighttime light of an Alabama concert hall, and Taylor is thin and slight and pale and beautiful in her summer dress, wavy blond hair flowing down beyond her shoulders and the light bright dress flowing down her body, the announcer having finished his introduction, she’s onstage and the guitarist is playing these hard, suspenseful, dissonant chords, Taylor joining in with her own guitar, her giant acoustic, the guitar bouncing against her thinness, its motion bouncing into her motion, insistent beats from drums and from her jagged guitar chords; and this girl—teen country singer, sudden superstar, just 16 when the album comes out and climbs the country charts, 17 when “Teardrops On My Guitar” jumps from country to Top 40—this girl is there in the spotlight, starlight, slight girl but insistent, speaking, talking, half in rap and half in vulnerable excited white-country-girl speech, these words of terror and ambition, “There’s vomit on his sweater already/Mom’s spaghetti/He’s nervous but on the surface he looks calm and ready/To drop bombs.” So this country singer in girly brights is taking hard hip-hop words from Eminem, words of fear and force, terror girl, waving with energy animating her thinness, strong in her slightness, “You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow/This opportunity comes ONCE IN A LIFETIME,” she raises her arm, crowd cries out, she continues, “You better lose yourself in the music, the moment, you own it, you better never let it go.” Then she ends it, calls out, “Y’all ready to hear some country music?” as if to half negate what she’s done. (All right. Back to reality, back to
My friend Keenan has the sort of fierce high-toned beauty you find in Italian films of the early ’60s, as if she’s stepped out of L’Avventura, except her jeans are casual and her manner is sweet and hesitant and emotional, more like she’s in Annie Hall, and she grew up in the forests of Minnesota and lived most of her adulthood in the mountains of Colorado—she’s helping me to understand summer dresses. “Summertime dresses … You can whip ’em off in a second, go in a creek, or even go into the creek with the dress on. Wearing a dress like that is like wearing a cloud.”
So in effect she’s telling me that
Obviously, Taylor looks great in dresses—really fetching, and the way she moves within them gives her a sense of rippling motion—but who’s to say she wouldn’t also look great in a tank top and jeans, or a cowboy blouse? Why have dresses become a signature for her? And are they really a signature specific to her? Plenty of country women—all of them except Gretchen Wilson—will don dresses and go femme. But dresses are indeed a
That’s pretty definitive, especially given that those other singers have all been around longer than
I’d searched “answers.yahoo.com” because when I’d done my original search for “Taylor Swift” “dresses” I got scads of hits from that Web address, usually questions such as “Anyone know where I can find sundresses like Taylor Swift wears with her cowboy boots?” Helpful answer to that one was “i would try any place that has sundresses. maybe forever21, charlotte russe, macys. you should look online at different stores, too. i would look at target first, though.” This isn’t remotely my area of expertise, but my impression is that Target and Forever 21 are known for giving you “cheap chic”—brand-name elegance without the brand name (a New York Times piece described Forever 21 copying $400 fancy dresses and selling them for $40).
So, a thought here is that
No doubt
And no doubt Taylor also has personal reasons for covering an Eminem rap—it means something to her, not just “Oh, hear me rap,” but this rap, the one telling her it’s her moment, she owns it, she better not let it go. But what I’m thinking here is that the blatant girlishness allows something to happen. It’s girly girl Taylor rather than tough girls Miranda or Gretchen who latches onto flame-thrower, button-pusher Eminem. Maybe
Smart cookie, and not an untough one, either.
Links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4WQPfMzK10
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DA-H9PS8mNg
Bella as Taylor Swift
http://www.kspr.com/younews/10385747.html?img=1&mg=t
Keep the conversation going at koganbot(at)gmail.com
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