Her lashes flutter close, the ends of matching black wings disappearing under the ends of her fringe. Her palms press together to keep from shaking, cupping around her nose and mouth. Into the enclosed space of her hands, a private altar cupped at her fingertips, she breathes slow. Nervous. Steeling herself. Praying to whatever higher power that might be — alongside 200 million humans in an unprecedented number for such a broadcast — tuning in to watch the Kansas City Chiefs take on (and eventually defeat) the San Francisco 49ers.
The amateurs stood no chance against The Taylor Swift Effect. Cut from the team. Struck down by God or Nike (Greek) or Nike (Brand). Or, as it’s known to some, by Tayvoodoo.
This weekend will be another test of the Swift Effect as Super Bowl LIX kicks off on Sunday, February 9 in a repeat match up of Super Bowl LVII: Kansas City Chiefs vs Philadelphia Eagles. The game is set to take place in New Orleans, LA at the Caesars Superdome where Taylor will undoubtedly be posted up in the stands, casting whatever Tayvoodoo she needs to in order to summon a Chiefs win. If they indeed were to win, the Chiefs would secure their third consecutive Super Bowl Championship (known colloquially as a ‘threepeat’).
In advance of this season’s grand sportsball finale is another TSS two-way fashion walk:
First, a retrospective on the nine looks from the 2024-25 season.
Then, what I think she might wear to Travvy’s big game.
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… But the dressing up sure is fun!
Since September 2024, Taylor has attended nine Chiefs games. Her pending appearance at this Sunday’s Super Bowl will bring her season two total attendance up to 10. Last season, 2023-24, Taylor managed to squeeze in 13 games in between dates on the Eras Tour. A number she surely would have duplicated this year had scheduling conflicts on the North American leg of Eras not prevented her from attending three Chiefs games while she was on stage performing in Miami, New Orleans, and Vancouver.
Now with two seasons under her belt of developing this new genre of her fashion, Taylor and her team have developed a visual record almost two dozen outfits deep. Together, it forms a case study dense enough to demonstrate seasonal narrative changes in dress, particularly for momentous game days year over year – like the AFC Championship. Heavily photographed moments like this are intentionally styled.
🏈 2023-24: For a look at last year’s “Road to the Super Bowl” recap, head below.
🏆 Ranking The Looks: And for a definitive ranking of Taylor’s 2024-25 looks, I wrote a piece for ELLE Canada on this exact thing! Read it here.
What I find makes game day dress particularly fascinating is that it has constant and constraints that can be relied upon every week for outfits to be organized around. A constant would be her setting, like a football stadium. A constraint might be adhering to Chiefs colours. The challenge is in creating outfits that are able to stand up on their own individually but that also “speak” to one another when looked at as a cohesive storied whole. Last season, Taylor’s outfits felt like an authentic sidestep of the established, vintage-leaning, girly style she’s known for. This year told a much different – and more elevated – story.
One of the greatest mental exercises in writing my book, Taylor Swift Style, was taking a step back to see how Taylor’s story has been formed and shaped as a cohesive whole. Though I report on her fashion on an ongoing basis, outfit after outfit, it’s easy to lose the forest for the trees. Are we out of the woods yet? No. But when we get there it’s a beneficial vantage point from which to see a styled body of work – whether that be an era or a season of game day appearances – as an entity. Patterns emerge. Rhythms form. You get a sense of what the story was all along. That was certainly what I experienced in seeing these nine looks together.
So let’s take a look back at the looks that got us to this year’s Super Bowl.
September 5, 2024 / Chiefs vs Ravens: Taylor kicked the season into thigh high gear in a Canadian tuxedo ensemble that got a spicy kick from some patent red Giuseppe Zanotti boots. Her denim Versace bustier was a “if I like it I’ll just buy it in a different colour” item duplicate for her closet that I recognized immediately. She previously wore it in black for a dinner date with Travis in NYC the previous fall. This particular look was the reader favourite from the season on the 2024 Favourite Outfits list. As a season opener, it immediately let us know that this Dorothy was clicking a different kind of red shoe together and that Taylor’s game day fashion was no longer the Kansas City style we knew from the year prior.
September 15, 2024 / Chiefs vs Bengals: An underrated moment from the season that I think gets lost in the crowd. If the week prior was about making a bold and immediate distinction from last year’s cutesy vintage-led fashion, the second week’s game was a gentle backpedal to ease us into the higher end style we’d come to expect from later games. Here, a vintage Chiefs jersey gets a high dose of luxe with Louis Vuitton earrings and bag. It also established an immediate connect to the game before with repeat Giuseppe Zanotti boots, but in black.
October 7, 2024 / Chiefs vs Saints: The third week saw our first shift into that season’s new branded spotlight strategy wherein a single designer is credited for the whole look. While I wasn’t the biggest fan of this Vivienne Westwood plaid, I did appreciate its potential deeper messaging that tied into an important NFL initiative. I’ll always remember this outfit fondly as I reported on it while officially on the road in support of the Taylor Swift Style book tour. I can vividly recall furiously identifying this look from my Airbnb in Seattle.
November 4, 2024 / Chiefs vs Buccaneers: And the pendulum swing returns to yet another carefully mixed vintage and high end designer moment. This time, a preppy vintage Chiefs jacket is styled with a bevy of luxury brands including Louis Vuitton earrings, a vintage Chanel necklace, a Mugler bodysuit, a Dior bag, and Christian Louboutin boots that give the look a western kick.
November 10, 2024 / Chiefs vs Broncos: Looking at an entire season in retrospect gives us the opportunity to understand the storyline of outfits as a whole. This is part of the styling process that I find so fascinating (so much so I wrote a whole book on the subject!). Here, the pendulum swings once again with the season’s second branded spotlight. I remember writing this post at the Seattle airport, on my way home from my book tour stop in Austin, TX. Another thing I love about fashion is that it’s a sense memory for me. Like smell or taste. I can remember times and places based on outfits. And I distinctly recall sitting at my gate, furiously typing my love for this Versace CEO Cher Horowitz look before boarding my flight home. A top tier look from me for the entire season.
November 27, 2024 / Chiefs vs Raiders: If one were to make a pie chart of a 2023-24 season look it might be 50% vintage, 25% locally-founded, 25% luxury – with the vintage item being the “main” piece of the outfit (a sweatshirt, a jacket, a coat, etc). As the 2024-25 season progressed, luxury and vintage swapped places and then luxury slowly began to supercede all. In this look, the only thing tempering the designer details of the outfit (besides it being a relatively “casual” combination of a quarter zip, jeans, and boots) is a repeat pair of waxed leather pants by Paige previously worn during the 2023-24 season. Which, admittedly, are a great year over year connect and a nod to how she’s been resumé building her NFL style for awhile now.
December 21, 2024 / Chiefs vs Texans: I have a soft spot for the over the top nature of this look which I originally described as having a “glam Martha May Whovier energy.” The Chanel bucket hat, the feather trimmed coat, the Manolo boots. If we’re committing to a wealth of wealthy high end looks, let them be camp!
January 18, 2025 / Chiefs vs Texans: On the eve of this outing, Taylor uncharacteristically sported a pair of Chanel earrings while out to dinner in New York. I theorized that they might be a precursor to the look she’d wear to the game the following day. And oh was I right because this was our third designer spotlight and our first ever straight runway pull. While I normally am not a fan of taking a look straight from the runway as I find doing so typically strips a look of originality, this was not the case here as the original look of a romper and belt was presented during Chanel’s Resort 2025 show. Here, the look is revamped entirely for the completely opposite season and winterized exceptionally well with a beautiful coat and vintage boots – all by Chanel, natch.
January 26, 2025 / Chiefs vs Bills: The AFC Championship game gave us our fourth designer spotlight of the season and the penultimate look in the lead up to the Super Bowl. This head to toe (to fingertip) Louis Vuitton look was in stark contrast to Taylor’s previous AFC Championship look. While on the surface they are built from the same formula (cozy oversized top, pleated mini skirt, tights, boots) the overall effect could not be more different. Last year, Taylor had sentimental pulls in her outfit like a sweater from her friend Gigi Hadid’s cashmere line in addition to affordable jewelry (like a $14 ring) from local KC businesses. Flash forward to this year. The image of confetti sticking to Taylor’s LV monogrammed beanie, hands cocooned in Louis V monograms embracing Travis for an on-field celebratory smooch “Hit[s] Different” as the song goes (ish).
When it comes to predicting looks this year for Taylor’s second appearance at the Super Bowl, a designer moment seems all but certain.
As I wrote last year, according to Reuters, a 30 second ad spot for the Super Bowl costs $7 million. The New York Times estimates that Taylor is shown on screen for roughly that length of time over the course of a three hour game. If we consider Taylor’s outfits the equivalent of a human billboard, the advertorial value of Taylor’s fashion choice on Sunday is worth millions of dollars to whoever she chooses to wear on the big day. And if she decides to allot the majority of her outfit towards one single designer, the cost is literally worth millions.
The only questions are:
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Which designer and to what extent?
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Will it be an artful mix that brings back vintage?
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Will it be another complete designer spotlight?
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Will the commitment to monograms be so extreme that we enter a realm of designer balaclavas?
📝 Support: The rest of the post — featuring four predictions for the Super Bowl (plus three bonus looks) — continues under the cut below for paid subscribers only. The TSS newsletter doesn’t take on any advertisers and is entirely supported by readers like you who have a love of fashion and are unafraid of the deep dive. Every bit of support for the editorial efforts that go into making posts like this means so much. Would you consider supporting me by upgrading to a paid subscription or gifting a month today?
Knowing that Taylor’s look is likely to contain a mix of pieces, I’ve pulled general moodboard vibes from designers that I think are in contention for inclusion.
