Taylor Swift's 'The Eras Tour' inspires free art exhibition at London's V&A

LONDON Taylor Swift's “The Eras Tour” has helped make the singer a billionaire and boosted the economies of the many cities she's performed in. Fans who have attended her concerts in the United Kingdom have spent more than $1,000 each on tickets, accommodation and travel.

Now, a new Taylor Swift show is coming to London and it's free.

Starting Saturday, July 27, the British capital's Victoria & Albert Museum (known as V&A South Kensington) will be exhibiting Swift's “looks,” including dresses, cowboy boots and custom-made ballet slippers, as well as musical instruments. The collection will be on display until September 8.

The V&A “Songbook Trail” will feature 13 installations, each exploring a different era in Swift's career. The Victorian-inspired black dress she wore in the music video for her 2024 song “Fortnight” is featured in the exhibition, as is a lavender tulle dress from the cover of her 2023 album “Speak Now (Taylor's Version).” A total of 16 outfits will be featured.

Personal items from Swift's early career are also included, such as the costume she wore on her 2008 “Fearless” tour to perform “Love Story” and the Taylor Koa guitar from the 2006-2007 “Soul2Soul II” tour.

The exhibition includes costumes and other objects from Swift's personal archive and is designed to showcase the singer's “famous looks”, according to Kate Bailey, senior curator of theatre and performance at the V&A. It is on display in the museum's permanent galleries.

“Each intimate encounter will celebrate a chapter in the artist’s musical journey. Taylor Swift’s songs, like objects, tell stories, often inspired by art, history and literature,” Bailey said in an emailed statement. “We hope this specially created theatrical journey through the museum will inspire the imagination of curious visitors as they discover more about the performer, her creativity and the V&A’s objects,” she added.

Taylor Swift was just 16 when she released her solo album Taylor Swift and performed on country singers Faith Hill and Tim McGraw's Soul2Soul II Tour that year. The V&A's exhibition includes a ruffled turquoise dress she wore on the tour.

In 2010, Swift released “Speak Now,” which reflected her transition into adulthood. It became one of several albums re-recorded as “Taylor's Version,” a choice Swift made in an effort to control her own original recordings. The lavender dress she wore on the back cover of the album “Speak Now (Taylor's Version)” is on display, as is a ukulele she played on the “Speak Now World Tour.”