Taylor Swift's Reputation set at the opening night of her final Eras Tour leg on Oct. 18 began as it has for more than 130 shows over the last year and a half: with a fast-cut montage of Swift, clad in black, walking down a dark hallway, juxtaposed with clips of coiling, hissing serpents. They flash across the gigantic stadium screens to a throbbing bass, the music accelerating and the screams of the crowd growing louder until she emerges to perform her 2017 banger "...Ready for It?"
But as Taylor Swift took her first steps out from backstage and a glimmer of gold sequins caught the light, Miami's Hard Rock Stadium absolutely erupted with noise. Phones that were hidden in pockets and clear bags just minutes before were whipped out at light speed. In front of me, a young woman in a 1989-coded skater skirt turned to her obviously perplexed male partner, shook his shoulder, and shrieked, "It's finally happening!" I, a normally composed reporter, jumped and gripped the arm of the journalist next to me, jaw best described as "dropped." Maybe it was just the extra jolt of excitement in an already charged atmosphere, but I swore I could feel the ground move under my feet.
When she finally appeared in full view, the stadium's collective hunch was confirmed: Taylor Swift's new Reputation outfit era had finally begun. Cue even more screams.
Swift's fresh Reputation outfit is a Roberto Cavalli one-shoulder, one-leg jumpsuit. Over a mesh and black sequin base, a 3D cobra winds its way up and around Swift's leg, over her torso, and up to near her neckline. Its scales, visible from my seat hundreds of feet away, are comprised of gold baguette, black bezel, and crystal stone accents. Additional golden snakes twine around one covered arm and her midriff; some fans online noted that the cobra on the back of the bodysuit resembles the number two.
As you may guess by the reactions in the room—and online, where everyone from Sabrina Carpenter to the official Sour Patch Kids X account had something to say—this bodysuit isn't just another costume change.
Throughout the Eras Tour, Taylor Swift and her longtime stylist Joseph Cassell Falconer have carefully selected designers to create pieces emblematic of each musical era explored on the tour. Over time, they've also introduced extra color variations of the same piece—such as her twinkly navy bodysuits for Midnights or the dreamy, bohemian Alberta Ferretti maxi dresses for Folklore and Evermore.
"These variations typically offer us an expansion of the established world she's created within that era," says Sarah Chapelle, New York Times bestselling author of Taylor Swift Style. "Most of the costume variations typically differ in color and slightly in silhouette, but the goal is to always build off of the customary 'dress codes' of each era."
However, Reputation was an exception to the rule that Swifties immediately noticed. The tour opened in March 2023 with a Roberto Cavalli bodysuit featuring red sequin snakes for every single performance. Taylor Swift has never deviated from her original Reputation outfit over five continents and more than 100 shows—until Oct. 18, that is. In the Taylor Swift cinematic universe, that means....something.
Swift is well-known for using fashion to communicate with her fans: both to make visible the emotional landscape of a given project, or to drop hints about upcoming work. While the singer's latest album, The Tortured Poets Department, is less than a year old, fans are already searching for signs of her next re-recorded album. Only two, Taylor Swift and Reputation, haven't been released yet. Swifties have speculated that the moment Swift changes her Reputation costume, the countdown for the album will commence. Recent street style pieces, including a Roberto Cavalli bag embellished with snake hardware, have only raised hopes for "Getaway Car (Taylor's Version)" to hit streaming soon. A long-awaited new Reputation outfit arriving on the first night of the tour's return strikes Swift's most avid followers as a sign that new-old music is on the way. (How snakes became the unofficial mascot of the album is a story I'll leave to more gossip-driven coverage.)
While Reputation shook the stadium, two more of Taylor Swift's fresh Eras Tour outfits also sent the crowd around me into raptures. (And to their phones—to confirm whether the pieces were, in fact, new.) For Fearless, Swift unveiled a fringe Roberto Cavalli bustier mini dress, in shades of "light sapphire" and "aurora borealis," per the designer. As is Eras tradition, she paired it with knee-high custom Christian Louboutin boots and a glitter-covered guitar, referencing the playfulness and innocence of her high-school album.
Style surprises arrived all the way in the acoustic set, Swift's second-to-last segment of the show. She quick-changed out of her Vivienne Westwood corset dress for The Tortured Poets Department into a high-low ombré wrap dress, once again by Roberto Cavalli. Four colors—magenta, purple, petroleum, and midnight blue—swirl together over the plunge neckline and ruffled skirt, coated in crystals to match the gradient of the fabric. As Swift performed mash-ups of two songs on both the guitar and the piano—first "Tim McGraw" and "Timeless," then "This Is Me Trying" and "Daylight"—I wondered if the color-mixing was a homage to how she blends eras during this segment of the show.
After Swift performed "Karma" and confetti fell with the misty midnight rain, all I heard anyone talking about on their way back to the parking lot was the new Reputation outfit. Did it mean the re-record announcement would arrive by the end of the weekend? Would Swift bring out another version of the costume to drum up excitement? There's a stronger possibility of the latter.
"The thing about Taylor is that we should always expect the unexpected—a new costume variation can truly hit us at any time," Chapelle says. "While a Night 1 is usually a solid guess, she's also been known to throw a new costume into the mix on Night 2, as she did during the second round of dates in London."
One thing is for sure: Taylor Swift dresses not for revenge, but for her fans. At the start of the acoustic set, she swept out her skirt with one hand and asked the stands, "Do you like my new dress?" The crowd screamed back, and she smiled sweetly in response. "You guys are the most rewarding group of people to show a new outfit to."
Editor's note: This post has been updated.
