How the musical superstar uses the power of nail polish to leave Easter eggs for her fans
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The Swifties were certain. Grammys night 2024 would’ve, could’ve, should’ve been when Taylor Swift announced the impossibly anticipated Reputation (Taylor’s Version) . She’d given us so many signs—or so we thought.
She’d been spotted wearing tons of black, and even some positively serpentine Jimmy Choo boots during a break from the Eras Tour. (Snakes and Reputation are kind of a thing.) And in her interview for Time ’s 2023 Person of the Year, Swift teased that the previously unreleased Reputation “vault” tracks to come were “fire.” Some fans even swore, based on the truly arcane “112-day theory” (read about it here ), that Rep TV would be released on February 16, 2024.
Swift arrived on the 2024 Grammy red carpet at Crypto.com Arena in a creamy white custom Schiaparelli gown with black opera gloves. Black! For Reputation? “The gloves were an interesting styling choice that nodded to trendiness, but also added drama,” says Sarah Chapelle, owner of @taylorswiftstyle on Instagram and author of the forthcoming hardcover Taylor Swift Style: Fashion Through the Eras .
We should have known drama was coming. Upon winning for Best Pop Vocal Album (her 13th Grammy, an auspicious number in Swiftian folklore)—and just as every fan around the world was about to lose consciousness—Dr. Taylor Allison Swift pulled the rug out from under the universe by announcing not Reputation (Taylor’s Version) , but a brand-new studio album, The Tortured Poets Department . Within seconds, she had posted the album’s black-and-white cover on Instagram. Cue global meltdowns. (Not one, not two, but five friends immediately texted asking if I was okay. I was not.)
Something important happened next. Upon returning to her seat, Swift discreetly removed those black opera gloves, revealing a white manicure. When she took the stage later in the evening to collect the Album of the Year award— becoming the only artist in history to do so four times —she held the statuette in a way that clearly showed off her white nails—discreetly announcing an aesthetic shift not into the black of Reputation, but into the white of TTPD , her newest era.
It was an act of subterfuge. A wink. We should have known! The gloves were literally and figuratively coming off, putting the spotlight right back on her manicure. After all, Swift has been sending messages with her nails for a long time.
“Taylor grew up wanting to express herself through fashion. But I feel like in the early part of your career, when you’re trying to make a name for yourself, you’re more likely to follow what’s on trend and go with what the stylists pick for you, so her nails and hands are where she would express herself,” longtime Swiftie Courtney Bloch tells me.
That’s why in the Fearless and Speak Now eras, Bloch theorized, we saw Taylor give herself glittery manicures, draw a large number 13 on her hands, or even write song lyrics along the entire length of her arm. “The arm lyrics used to give us insight into what was happening in her life,” Bloch says. “Now that she’s older, I think she feels more confident to convey those same messages just with her nails.”
Swift’s manicures offer us a glimpse into her inner world. In March 2023, just days before kicking off the Eras Tour, she posted some pictu...