We are all in our Taylor Swift Eras era at the moment. She is the queen of reinvention, constantly experimenting with different styles of music and different fashion aesthetics, from her preppy looks for 1989 to her more dreamy, 70s-inspired looks for Midnights. If you’ve been feeling like you need a shake-up, she’s a great source of inspiration.
Red is a color full of symbolism in culture at large, but also in Swift’s music. So, if you’re looking to choose a show-stopping red look for an event, or you’re trying to find an outfit inspired by Swift’s Red album for your Eras look, we have you covered. You can be a show-stopper in these Taylor Swift-inspired red outfits.
Swift’s Most Iconic Red Outfits
Taylor Swift has worn a variety of red dresses and even released an album entitled Red, released in 2012. It’s clearly an important color she’s used many times over the years. Red is also a great color to wear for formal events.
“I Bet You Think About Me” Music Video
In 2021 Swift released a new music video for her vault track, “I Bet You Think About Me” with Chris Stapleton. The video took place at a wedding where all of the guests are in white, but Swift appears like a specter in red, haunting the groom.
She changes outfits a few times throughout the video, representing different people at the wedding, from a staff uniform to a flower girl’s dress, to a huge blood-red bridal gown, with a few others in between.
Recreate the Look
There is a lot of inspiration you can mine in this music video. You could do a bold monochrome look in a red suit and red shirt, as Swift wears in one scene where she fills the role of a groomsman.
Her wedding guest outfit is also a long, sleek red gown with huge flower details on the shoulders. Choose a dress with a similar silhouette, and you could potentially add a jacket or DIY flowered shoulders if you can’t find an exact match.
For the wedding dress look, however, you’ll want a ball gown with layers of tulle. While red wedding dresses may still be hard to find in parts of America, a floor-length red formal gown with the same vibes can get you pretty close. A sleeveless gown with some corsetted support will help hold up the weight of the skirt without adding straps.
The Red Tour
When touring her album Red, it should be no surprise that the color made an appearance several times in her costumes. During the Red tour, she performed some classic favorites from earlier albums, such as “You Belong With Me.”
In concert, she spiced up the song with a jazzy retro vibe, reminiscent of a World War 2 USO show. Her short and sparkling red dress adds to the vintage vibe with a sweetheart neckline, flouncy skirt, and matching red elbow-length gloves.
During the same tour, she sported another vintage-inspired red dress for her performance of “Lucky Ones.” The bodice of her dress has a plunging v-neck, with an attached full-length swishy skirt, a la Marilyn Monroe, but with a twist. The front part of the skirt is left open, revealing shimmering red tap pants. The look is paired with red gloves again and heeled red booties.
For the performance of “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” and some of the promotional photos for the tour, Swift wore a circus ringleader costume with a sparking crimson jacket and heeled boots with red details.
Recreate the Look
Out of all the looks from the Red tour, most people are looking to recreate her “You Belong With Me” or “Lucky Ones” outfits. However, we won’t judge if you want to have a Swift-inspired circus look for a night out.
For her retro look from “You Belong With Me,” a red mini dress with sequins and glitter will capture that sweet vintage style, particularly if the dress has an A-line shape and a sweetheart neckline.
The “Lucky Ones dress brings a very elegant and classic formalwear look. A sleeveless dress with a plunging neckline is daring, but the floor-length, full skirt makes it a more mature style. If you want to recreate the look exactly, you may need to partner with a seamstress or tailor to open up the front of the dress to reveal red shorts. Or you could simply leave it as-is, just a nod to the look, rather than an exact replica.
The most iconic element is definitely adding some red satin elbow-length gloves. For both outfits, it ties the looks together. For the “You Belong With Me” look, it adds an element of retro costuming that makes it look more like something a singer in the 1940s would wear. For “Lucky Ones,” it pulls together an elegant and dramatic style.
At Award Shows
Swift makes frequent appearances at award shows and has memorably won a few as well. Sometimes she brings out a red look for those nights.
During her Red era, she wore a red gown to the 2012 Billboard Music Awards. The dress was an edgier, sexier style, though it didn’t show a ton of skin. Made of layers of light, sheer material, the gathered skirt hung to the ground. The top portion of the dress was made from panels of sheer lace intersected with solid straps. The style felt like a piece of lingerie with its contrasting panels and the light sheer skirt.
2009 is probably the most well-known appearance Swift made at an award show. In 2009 Swift was transitioning from her early days as a country artist to being a mainstream pop singer. She won Best Video by a Female Artist at the MTV Music Awards and was famously interrupted by Kanye during her acceptance speech. At the time, she was wearing a silver one-shoulder gown covered in sequins.
However, after that infamous event, Swift performed at the show, wearing a strapless vintage red dress. With a full skirt and a ruched bodice, complete with a sweetheart neckline, that dress got its time to shine during her performance, and when Beyonce graciously invited her back onstage to finish her speech later.
Recreate the Look
To channel the understated sexiness of Swift’s lingerie dress, look for a dress that has similar sheer paneling. A dress that is lined with flesh-tone fabric will hint at sheerness without actually being sheer, keeping any undergarments a secret.
Lightweight, floaty, gauzy fabric and lace details are also commonly seen on lingerie and hint at feminine sexiness.
A classic early Swift look, the MTV Music Awards dress featured spaghetti straps, but it would work just as well strapless. Choose something with a fit and flair shape, and look for a dress that has a few layers of fabric. The dress she wore was simple, but the ruched gauzed fabric across the bodice gave it more visual detail and the skirt also featured a layer of sheer gauze.
Red Era Inspiration
Of course, if you’re trying to put together an iconic look from the Red era for your Eras tour party, you don’t have to literally wear a red dress. There are other fun looks you can play with as inspiration.
Short Shorts
Swift perfectly encapsulated the early 2010s mania for quirky fashion. Her penchant for short shorts reflected the styles of the time, and she even opened her Red tour in a pair of black pleather shorts and a white blouse. This mix of tiny pleather shorts and a more professional-looking blouse (not to mention a fedora) just screams 2012.
She brings back a shorts look later in the concert, but red and sparkling. First, under her “Lucky Ones” gown, and then later with a tee shirt and red sneakers. This is an easy look to recreate. Choose a pair of shorts with a high waist to really capture that vintage-inspired silhouette that defined this era of fashion for Swift.
“I Knew You Were Trouble”
During performances of “I Knew You Were Trouble” on the Red tour, Swift starts in a puffy white wedding dress, but mid-way through the song, she is stripped of it, revealing a black bodysuit. This also pairs with a transition into a dubstep arrangement of the tune.
The body suit has gold embroidery up the legs, lace sleeves, and lace cut-outs on the abdomen. You could find a black sleeveless romper or a sleeveless black dress and add a lace shirt underneath to give a similar effect. Depending on your DIY skills, you could even add the gold embroidery and cut-outs if you have trouble finding an option that has those features.
Skinny Jeans and Stripes
If you aren’t looking to recreate a particular outfit, but would rather just capture Taylor Swift’s general fashion vibe from this era, you can’t go wrong with skinny jeans, a striped blouse, and Oxford flats.
Swift was frequently seen in variations of this combo in performance and on the street. You could even do the skinny jeans in red, as she was seen sporting a few times. Add some sparkle to the shoes, and you have a classic 2010s Swift outfit.
Loving Dressing in Red
Taylor Swift is iconic for experimenting with music and style aesthetics, which can be a huge inspiration. You can channel some of her most iconic red dresses for your next formal event. Or you can have fun with a more casual look for your Eras tour viewing outfit if Red is the era you want to represent.
