Just as surely as the Met Gala 2024 is fashion’s biggest night, Taylor Swift is one of the most talked-about people on the planet. And when the two intersect, there’s plenty to discuss.
Swift first attended the legendary gala in 2008, then an 18-year-old songstress with a single self-titled country album under her belt. Earlier that year, she’d had her first appearance in the top 15 of the Billboard Hot 100 list, when her single “Teardrops on My Guitar” reached No. 13. (In late 2022, she became the first artist to simultaneously claim every single one of the same list’s top 10 slots.) Swift was still months away from releasing her sophomore effort, Fearless, and a year and a half from Kanye West’s onstage invasion and declaration that “Imma let you finish” while she accepted the Best Female Video award at the MTV Video Music Awards for “You Belong With Me,” an incident that continues to reverberate through Swift’s career to this day.
Or maybe 2008 is best summed up in social media terms: MySpace was still alive and very much kicking at the time, and Instagram didn’t even exist yet.
When the teenaged Swift stepped out at her first Met Gala in May 2008, she sported a shimmery Badgley Mischka dress in a shade similar to her long, curly hair. When she dressed in sequins resembling mermaid scales for the year’s “Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy” theme, Swift hadn’t yet embraced her signature “red lip classic thing that you like” lip color, opting instead for a demure petal pink shade.
Since that first Met Gala appearance, Swift has attended the party five more times, most recently in 2016, showcasing a range of looks that go all the way from 2014’s romantic blush-tinged ballgown, complete with train and Old Hollywood-inspired waved hair, to her daringly dark custom Louis Vuitton mini in 2016, which she paired with her freshly bleached platinum blonde bob and gothic black lace-up sandals. On Reputation’s song “Dress” the next year, she seems to reference that particular night, and potentially even meeting future boyfriend (and future-future ex-boyfriend) Joe Alwyn at the event, singing, “Flashback when you met me / Your buzzcut and my hair bleached.”
That last appearance wasn’t just notable for the Alwyn of it all: In 2016, Swift was one of the event’s co-chairs. She also made waves for dancing with another future (ex) beau Tom Hiddleston inside the party, shortly before her split from then-flame Calvin Harris became public. Hiddleston and Swift twirled to Beyoncé’s “Crazy in Love,” with a Givenchy-clad Bey herself in attendance at the bash too.
Only time will tell when Swift will next grace the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Until then, check out her style evolution at the Met Gala through the years.