The first words Taylor Swift sings at the beginning of her outrageously successful Eras tour concert emerge from perfectly-painted red lips - rumoured to be MAC’s Ruby Woo, which Swift once described as a “staple” - and at the end of that concert, as she sings Karma to her rapturous, friendship-bracelet festooned audience, that very same lipstick remains in place, perfectly-sharp arches still hugging Taylor’s cupid’s bow.
I know this not because I have already been to one of her hallowed performances but rather because I’m due to see HRH Tay Tay in this next wave of London concerts with some hardcore Swifties and, nervous that I’d be caught out as a fair-weather fan, I’ve spent hours watching the tour footage. I’ve enjoyed the music, sure - but my beauty editor’s eye always picks up on grooming details and the fact that the lipstick stays so faithfully put is noteworthy to me.
As is, for entirely different reasons, her hairdo. Or rather the transformation of her hairdo. Her trademark flaxen no-highlights-highlighted hair is bang on trend (maybe she is at the genesis of this one? It wouldn’t surprise me) and therefore not worthy of dissemination by any but her most ardent fans - but that it begins glossy and straight and ends up wavy and ever so slightly frizzy as humidity’s had its way with it seemed worthy of a little ponder.
I keep seeing this less is more, natural texture being encouraged thing among those with wavy hair, you see. Victoria Beckham’s casual lengths while recreating her wedding photos on thrones were certainly less laboured than usual, and Daisy Edgar Jones has similarly been sporting soft long hair with a fringe - very Taylor but brunette in vibe - during her Twisters press tour.
At first I thought perhaps the proliferation of minimally-styled hair is still a covid hangover, a result of becoming acquainted with our less coiffed selves and lots of primping therefore feeling a little odd, but then I remembered that Mob Wife happened earlier in the year and that required maximum decoration.
Could it be do to with the brat aesthetic, in which things are meant to feel a bit less pulled together, a bit more chaotic? Again, no: Taylor’s tour began long before Charli XCX inspired the trend of the summer.
Or is it that we are all - Taylor included - just sick of the rigamarole of repeatedly going at our hair and want it to just all be a bit easier? As a woman with wavy hair who once upon a time would run straighteners through it twice daily to control my stubborn cowlick, I certainly feel liberated at the sight of Taylor strutting around on stage singing the hits that made her a millionaire - or wait, it’s a billionaire, isn’t it? - hair growing ever more wild around her face.
My joy is compounded by the knowledge that this is partly an act of defiance and rebellion on Taylor’s part; we beauty folk know that even with naturally curly hair, even after sweating and singing for over three hours, there are ways for those occupying the lofty heights of celebrity to keep their hair slick.
I ask the legendary hairdresser Sam McKnight, who’s worked with basically ever A-Lister from Kate Moss to Sienna Miller, also including Taylor, if he thinks hair is always a semaphore, communicating between the famous and their fans and he told me he loves “that she uses it - all the cleverest artists do; they know that regular hair transformations are the perfect way to convey a message.”
Let’s assume that’s the case here. What precisely is Taylor trying to say by letting her hair do that thing wavy/curly hair does rather than let a stylist strong-arm it? Next on the phone to discuss is journalist and author Rebecca Reid, who’s bestowed a ticket upon me: “Taylor has quite literally an unlimited budget - if she wanted it to stay straight even when it got wet in, say, one of the open-air arenas when raining, she could hire a NASA scientist to work something out or get a Brazilian blow dry or whatever. I think she deliberately allows it to happen and there’s a relatability to it, particularly if you’re someone who has curly hair and know what it is to leave the house with straight hair and come back with curly hair whether you like it or not.”
Her second theory was a little more, in Rebecca’s words, “GCSE literature” - but I’m going to put it forward in the spirit of Taylor lore, because delving deeply into messaging seems to be a real thing in that community: “it’s a nice inversion - she starts the tour celebrating her career to date with the straight hair and it gets curly, while she started her career with curly hair and now it’s straight, so she does a visual return to the start, in a sense.”
Whichever it is - and my guess there’s an element of both, because Taylor tells her story through her lyrics and image - I think it’s unequivocally good for everyone buying her tickets and her messaging to see that not only can you do it with a broken heart, you can also do it in front of a huge audience while your hair breaks free and give zero f**ks.
