Favorite Outfits of 2025
An annual list of my picks vs yours!
Last year was the first time I skipped publishing a Favorite Outfits recap on December 31. Since starting Taylor Swift Style in 2011, and writing some form of a year-end list since 2012, I’ve scheduled a “favorites” series to an all-day publishing cadence on New Year’s Eve. I thought it made for a festive tradition. But it also required extensive pre-planning and dedicated time writing copy or formatting graphics. These hours often dulled the shine of my personal holiday festivities. It wasn’t unusual for friends to ask if I needed to dash mid-meal to tend to a digital responsibility.
As is often the case for a Type A personality, the deadline I was holding myself to was entirely self-imposed. Like no-show socks, I’ve wondered if my need to justify a social media break is a millennial trait. So here we are in the first week of 2026 with a recap of our favorite ‘fits from the year prior … and the world hasn’t ended. Gasp! Though it can feel like the internet is a 24 hour convenience store, where the lights are always on and the machine needs to be constantly fed, here’s a gentle reminder — to you and me — that we can choose how we illuminate our lives. The light switch is always there and we can always opt to switch it on or off. (A sincere thank you for choosing to flip the light on here in this space.)
This year, I sent out a poll to TSSers on Instagram asking about your favourite outfits of the year so my choices are presented right alongside yours. Many thanks to the thousands of you who responded. I’ve always believed one of the most fun parts of art (fashion being an art form) is its subjectivity. We agreed on some things! We disagreed on others! I enjoyed seeing where our opinions came together or, in some instances, diverged. I’d love to hear even more all about it in the comments below. See you there!
Scroll down for my thoughts on Taylor, everything that happened in 2025, and my top takeaways on all her outfits - including the major fashion themes as she ushered in a new era.
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This year may have been Taylor’s strongest to date, onstage and off. The neatest bit of narrative symmetry between Taylor’s personal and professional highs is perhaps best captured in her engagement to Travis Kelce coming just hours after taping the podcast appearance announcing her next studio album. The same podcast that had inadvertently played “butthurt” Cupid in sparking the relationship in the first place. Their matching neutral Ralph Lauren ensembles, surrounded by plentiful blooms, set the stage for America’s version of a royal wedding.
In May, Taylor shared that she had successfully purchased the masters for her first six albums. The carousel on her Instagram page was softened thanks to a sweet knit and jeans, both by Khaite, lending the monumentous occasion a casual and intimate feeling - like she was letting in friends on some major news. Having taken a final bow to the Eras era in December 2024, the acquisition of her early catalogue was a triumphant encore and a victorious closure after reliving and reenacting her past for years on tour or in carefully rerecorded versions of her music.
In the absence of the Eras Tour creating a definitive appearance schedule, Taylor largely took the “off” in “off season” following the Super Bowl quite literally. Our greatest insight into her well-deserved time off came in July via a photo carousel on Travis’ Instagram feed. Served, of course, with a side of a lyrical Easter Egg that kept it 100.
In October, Taylor Swift released her twelfth studio album, The Life of a Showgirl. The album followed through on her promise in an August New Heights appearance to deliver a tightly packed suite of 12 pop tracks engineered by Swedish hitmakers Max Martin and Shellback. Written at high velocity between curtain calls on the European leg of the Eras Tour in summer 2024, Showgirl came in like a glittering bullet. It color drenched - and bedazzled - the bleak landscape of predecessor The Tortured Poets Department with a brighter sound and style. Critical response was tepid, but commercial power was not. Showgirl obliterated multiple streaming and sales records - from most pre-saves to highest single-day streams. It even toppled Adele’s single-week sales benchmark when it sold an unprecedented 4 million units in just seven days. Taylor subsequently matched the return to promotional form. After embracing new media by announcing the album on a podcast, Taylor returned to traditional outlets for promotion. She made appearances on both sides of the Atlantic, conducting a string of interviews for U.K.-based radio plus a circuit of late night drop-bys with hosts Graham Norton, Seth Meyers, and Jimmy Fallon. Its lead single, “The Fate of Ophelia,” came with a theatrical listening experience that democratized Taylor’s signature fan listening parties, the Secret Sessions, by transforming them into a communal public experience.
Taylor mirrored her experience in December 2024 by “closing the book” on the Eras Tour era. The final version of the show, including the tacked-on Tortured Poets set, hit Disney+ in time with her 36th birthday. To complement the farewell party, a six-part documentary series was folded into the release to detail the stories, including those of the hardworking crew, behind the tour’s monumental efforts. To promote the project, an hour-long chat with Stephen Colbert in a rich red velvet David Koma dress wrapped up her promotional obligations for the year in a neat bow.
Last year, I described Taylor’s fashion as exuding excess. If I were to choose one this year, it might be “ease.” Not a retreat from glamour, but a recalibration of it. She glittered on the late night circuit in priceless antique jewels. Her gripping album visuals paid tribute to a disappearing act in authentic vintage glam. Even her game day and street style outfits drifted decisively toward high-design polish. In 2025, Taylor’s style read as less concerned with proving anything and more comfortable inhabiting the life she has built. The urgency to align with the strict era aesthetics that once animated her wardrobe softened into something freer and lighter. Most endearingly, when the stage lights dimmed, her signature high/low style approach endured: accessible labels mixed with designer pieces, alongside a fondly familiar rotation of well-worn staples longtime fashion watchers recognized. A thrill for those who continue to enjoy watching her style evolve through the years.
Back in 2024, her apparent growing confidence was perhaps bolstered by the behind-the-scenes fizz of recording The Life of a Showgirl, the pride of matching his-and-hers trophies (Album of the Year, hers; Super Bowl, his), or the relief of the Eras Tour’s final victory lap in Vancouver, Canada. In 2025, this shift feels inseparable from the full realization that she no longer needs to choose between a fulfilling personal life and a thriving professional one. The old tension - between privacy and visibility, ambition and intimacy - appears to have eased, and her clothes reflect that détente. Her looks are still polished, but are executed with a loosened grip that no longer adheres to lines of eras drawn in the sand. The result is a style that feels more lived-in, executed with less Era-centric precision in favor of a faceted mosaic. This suggests not a woman scaling new heights, but one who has arrived and is finally able to look around, unhurried.
Taylor attended two award shows this year and only one of those was in person. She arrived at the Grammys red carpet in February and accepted an iHeartRadio trophy virtually in March (I remember writing about this while on my honeymoon - fashion is always going to be like a sense memory for me).
Editor and Reader’s Pick: 67th Grammy Awards
We unanimously agreed that between the two, her red hot appearance that coordinated with the Grammys red carpet was our preference.
I personally likened the dramatic swoops and shortened hemline of her corseted Vivienne Westwood mini as a stylish bridge between her Poets and Showgirl style, taking the former’s signature silhouette and redrafting it with the color, vibrancy, and cheeky confidence associated with the latter.
When you consider that Taylor announced The Tortured Poets Department at this same awards show in 2024 wearing custom white Schiaparelli, the two dresses form a visual bookend. Both use the same language of corsetry to vastly different effects. A poet in restraints. A showgirl empowered. I also felt it served as a sartorial push to put an era behind her. In its rich red draping, I envisioned a theatre curtain falling. In a way, signaling the end of doing everything with a broken heart.
To support both The Life of a Showgirl and her The End of an Era docuseries, Taylor embarked on a press tour hitting all the traditional media stops including a radio blitz and late night appearances.
Editor and Reader’s Pick: Late Night with Seth Meyers
We were once again in agreement here! The classic disco ball dress, by Giuseppe di Morabito, that Taylor wore for her Jimmy Fallon appearance was a close second. While timelessly Taylor - a silver sequined mini will never go out of style - it was also, as a result, ambiguous to the era.
By contrast, Taylor’s brocade two piece by Wiederhoeft worn on Late Night made for an appropriate pull for the Showgirl era. At its core, Taylor Swift Style has always emphasized the power of fashion to anchoring a visual to a moment in time. This appearance did just that. Taylor’s tumbling long waves and antiqued floral patterning combined with her megawatt jewelry - particularly that statement collar necklace by David Morris Jeweller - to balance “Ophelia” mythos with Showgirl shine.
Taylor’s twelfth studio effort The Life of a Showgirl had some of the most potent album visuals I’d seen in her discography (already a high bar to clear!). Her use of archival Bob Mackie, pulled from the glittery wardrobe catacombs of Jubilee! (a shuttered Vegas showgirl production), offered legitimacy to the project while also giving a global spotlight to a fading art form.
This is where I felt Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott’s visuals did more to realize Taylor’s showgirl conceit than the album contents. Through these images, listeners are coaxed behind the curtain through a plume of smoke and feathers by a satin-gloved finger and a sultry crimson smile. But I thought the actual music fell short on delivering a backstage pass to the supersized presence and stagelights of the showgirl herself.
My criteria when selecting a final pick in this category was not which image is my personal favorite (The Shiny Bug), but which cover I thought best captured the themes of Showgirl (irreverence, cheek, confidence, physicality, glamor, and the sharp edges the industry cuts into its hopeful ingenues). While not itself a cover, how thoughtfully meta is this photo from her Target promotion? Also a fave!
Editor’s Pick: The Crowd Is Your King
I came close to selecting the Tiny Bubbles in Champagne variant, but I ultimately chose a photo with more fashion on display. This cover, from The Crowd Is Your King Target-exclusive vinyl variant, delivers on that.
While Taylor also wears this vintage Bob Mackie number elsewhere in the album visuals, I felt this shot was more dynamic and empowered than the come-hither posturing on the It’s Beautiful version of the album. There are parallels between the costuming of Las Vegas showgirls and the elaborate stage fashion of pop superstars. Here, the fashion and photography do a lot of work in commenting on the labor of performance, the grit behind the glitter. In this particular photo you can even see the lines of her hosiery. Her face, inscrutable and half doused in shadow, could be exhaustion or daring confidence - depending on your read. Documenting this effort makes sense under the Showgirl spotlight. Showgirls, after all, push back against the fantasy of effortless beauty. Their glamour is deliberate. Rehearsed, applied, and repeated. In an industry that fetishizes ease, Taylor’s visible ambition has long been part of her appeal. In Showgirl, she puts that effort on record.
Even the choice to illuminate from the side feels intentional and layered. A notable theme on Showgirl is its lack of tension - even between disparate viewpoints. On the same tracklist, “Wi$h Li$t” seeks out the quiet of domesticity in contrast to the spotlight-hunting ambition of the titular “The Life of a Showgirl.” Elsewhere, “CANCELLED!” romanticizes being war bonded by witch hunting while “Actually Romantic” lights its own match to romanticize shit talking. Rather than sounding dissonant, Showgirl harmonizes all these concepts into a tapestry that holds multiple truths — light and dark — all at once.
Reader’s Pick: Life is a Song
You, on the other hand, resonated with the deluxe acoustic version of the album cover. Taylor in her “Fate of Ophelia” finery, a custom Kelsey Randall dress so named “Ophelia” after Taylor wore it, is plunked in front of a tiny piano. Was anyone else reminded of the following moment from the original RED days?
There’s a charming juxtaposition to Taylor on the floor amidst a blanket of confetti, still in her Le Silla heels, to sit at a piano. Her chainmail dress is an ironically revealing take on armor. It distills everything Showgirl in one visual where there is zero friction between the glittering onstage performer and the introspective writer pulling up to an instrument and finding inspiration amongst the detritus.
❤️🔥 The Newsletters of a Showgirl: I’d be remiss if I didn’t refer back to my favorite Showgirl-related newsletters from 2025. Not to toot my own horn, but my prediction posts - in particular - kept it 100%!
“Predicting The Sound and Style of Taylor’s Upcoming 12th Album”: In this post, I refer to recent 2025 fashion to create moodboards galore predicting the fashion and music of The Life of a Showgirl - before it even had a name!
“Decoding Taylor Swift’s Showgirl Glamor”: I spoke to Las Vegas-based stylist and former Jubilee! dresser Jose Rodrigo on the history of showgirl costumes and how Taylor paid homage to this aesthetic with her album … Plus the one costume she wore backwards (of course!)
“The Life of a Showgirl Song Predictions”: A track by track bit of guesswork at what each of the dozen songs on Showgirl would be about. I didn’t need to knock on “Wood” to, ahem, nail this one.
“The Life of a Showgirl Review”: My full track by track review of the album post-release!
“The (After)Life of a Showgirl”: Amid the rage-bait and hot takes, a bright spot: this community’s genuine response to The Life of a Showgirl. I pulled together the most thoughtful reactions from readers that were a welcome, and authentic, breather from the noise.
“A Tale of Two Showgirls: Elizabeth Taylor and Taylor Swift” (Part I, Part II): A two-part series on Taylor and Elizabeth’s paralleled experiences (their fame, their scandals, their loves), how Taylor codified that connection into her recent song “Elizabeth Taylor”, and the overlap of significance that Cartier jewelry has played for both of them.
Football season is structured to fall on the cusps of the year. When we look at an annual calendar we typically see the final whistle of the season prior and the opening coin toss of the one to follow. Indeed, Taylor took in Super Bowl LIX in February and returned to Arrowhead Stadium for home games the following fall. In 2025, however, the Chiefs’ played their final game of the regular season in December - having failed to move forward into 2026’s playoff circuit.
Taylor’s approach in her third season of football spectating was marked by two notable shifts.
The first were her efforts to minimize her recorded appearance at games. Taylor used a variety of tactics - such as large panels to conceal her movements or simply a late arrival when press pools had largely dissipitated - in order to make it to her suite without fanfare or photography. Her motivations for the change are unconfirmed, but personal safety concerns seem possible. The nature of the league creates a public schedule of her exact location which dangerous individuals, sadly well-documented in Taylor’s world, could use for ominous means. I don’t blame her for pulling back visually in the public eye, for whatever reason she deemed necessary, in order to make showing up for her fiancé as safe as she could make it for herself. What is evident within this is how the Arrowhead press pool has observed the new policy. Typically, media credentials are given to a group who rotate position throughout a game to maximize coverage and minimize competition. All participating photographers then “pool” (as the name implies) their shots together to disseminate them to wire services (like Getty or AP), local news, or the team organization themselves. The near-total blackout of images of Taylor at games this season suggests, to me, a conscious adherence to requests from her camp not to photograph her.
The second shift was a redirect away from vintage Chiefs gear. These items were an endearing style signature established and relied upon in her rookie season. It felt especially fitting for Taylor, a longtime lover of vintage, and resulted in outfits that felt distinctly her own. The choice also carried ripple effects, elevating Kansas City-based clothing shop Westside Storey and quietly highlighting a more sustainable approach to fashion. The inclusion of these retro pieces in her outfits appeared more sporadically in her second season before disappearing entirely by her third.
Editor’s Pick: Commanders vs Chiefs (October 27)
I’m inclined to believe that Taylor’s third season of looks didn’t quite get their flowers because of her previously mentioned inconspicuous presence at Arrowhead. Had we seen a similar degree of visibility to her second season, where Taylor was a regularly photographed fixture in the stadium’s tunnels, I suspect her incredible run of designer moments would have been well received.
Take, for instance, my pick. A monochromatic red look from the utterly cool French brand Courrèges, a brand known for its future-forward glance on fabrication as well as its role in popularizing the mini skirt (an item much beloved by Taylor) in the ‘60s. The sleek updo and textural tension between a soft knit and an edgy leather skirt plays like First Lady of Kansas City out on the town.
If I can be permitted to issue an honorary mention? The Ulla Johnson ombré coat worn to the Chiefs vs Chargers game on December 14. Had we gotten a full glimpse at the styling, it might have been in proper contention for my pick this year. But alas! No further images surfaced of this ‘fit. However, I thought what we did see of the look, from the torso-up, was enough to warrant a sidebar. The coat was not only appropriate piece for the climate but it also put the Chiefs’ full color palette on display. Taylor often leans on red for game days, but this coat incorporated yellow into a faded gradient that bordered on chic sunset. Beautiful!
Reader’s Pick: Texans vs Chiefs (January 18)
You chose a favorite of mine from her previous season - an unexpected head to toe Chanel look. Surprising not just because of the brand, an atypical pull for Taylor, but because the styling was so good. I still dream of that jacket, which I saw in store while in Paris last fall, to this day.
Editor and Reader’s Pick: August 26, Engagement Announcement
Of course, we all said “yes!” when it came to choosing our favorite social media moment of the year. In coordinating Ralph Lauren looks, Taylor and Travis shared the happy news of their engagement. Travis popped the question amidst an installation of stunning blooms at home in Kansas City, MO last August.
I published a thorough glance back at Taylor and Travis’ public relationship highlights plus all my liner notes the visuals, the outfit, and The Ring to the newsletter in August. You can read it (for free) here.
In past years, Taylor’s style has been a compelling extension of her discography du jour. Her style choices were consistently distinct for its time while also playing within the guardrails of her recognizable - and easy to emulate - taste. She’s always dressed to preference, just given the pieces she naturally gravitates towards a bit of eras window dressing. By contrast, in 2025, her street style outings seemed more instinctive. Her fashion choices felt unencumbered by a clearly articulated visual thesis like those that defined her most previous sartorial chapters. The resulting street outfits aligned with her established style, often featuring the girlish staples longtime observers will recognize as agnostic to an era. Plaid skirts, short dresses, structured shoulder bags, tall boots, and platform loafers all made appearances.
Taylor’s choice to dress to her own whims is, itself, an intentional choice. One where she perhaps no longer feels beholden to dressing the part off-stage. She isn’t playing at being a showgirl, she simply is.
Editor’s Pick: October 30, New York City
Shop the look here
During my birthday week (many thanks for that!) Taylor delivered a solid run of outfits while heading out for dinners on consecutive nights in New York City. Altogether, they amalgamated into an impressive string of her take on feminine neutrals. There were plaid mini skirts a plenty!
My top choice was this luscious monochrome chocolate brown ensemble, a shade that continued to show strength in 2025. Being so, I loved seeing Taylor’s own take on an all-brown look. The slimmed proportions of her Dôen dress and Manolo Blahnik boots plus the sharp outline of her LV camera bag were the perfectly-styled streamlined foils to that voluminous (and utterly cool) bomber jacket by Magda Butrym. Unexpected from Taylor but utterly delightful to see.
Reader’s Pick: May 29, New York City
Shop the look here
Conversely, you selected her dark floral Dôen look back in the spring. A floaty feminine print is well within Taylor’s fashion language. However, this particular styling is more within her current taste than the twee, hipster, floral dress days of yore. A designer bag, unique belt, and piles of stacked jewelry scream mid 2020s Taylor.
One thing of consideration? This outing came on the eve of her masters acquisition announcement. Would it be too far of a reach to consider this dress a color coded ode to her first six albums and a stylish celebration of being thankful for her very own bouquet of work?
Knowing Taylor, probably not.
What a journey through the year! Many thanks for your patience as I work to get back into the swing of 2026 with a thorough glance back at the year prior.
And now …
What were your favorite outfits of 2025?
For the most part, my favorites didn't end up winning, which doesn't surprise me lol! The look I was most obsessed with was her November 7 NYC outfit. I'm OBSESSED with the asymmetrical Thom Browne miniskirt. For her album looks, the Ophelia dress was a very close second favorite to Shiny Bug. I was also just obsessed with her makeup in the Ophelia dress looks as well. It's different from her signature makeup, brighter and pinker than her usual.