If Taylor Swift’s “Reputation” was daring and edgy, her “Lover” era was quite the opposite. The “Don’t Blame Me” singer dropped her album, “Lover,” in August 2019, bringing with it a new phase of bright colors, optimism, and several romantic songs. “I’ve decided that in this life, I want to be defined by the things I love — not the things I hate, the things I’m afraid of, or the things that haunt me in the middle of the night,” she wrote in the album’s prologue (via Genius). “Those things may be my struggles, but they’re not my identity.”
Swift’s pastel color palette, butterfly symbols, and florals seemed to reflect her relationship with her then-boyfriend, Joe Alwyn, and her profession of love for him at the time. Oversized clothes, fringe, rainbows, and sparkles made up a majority of her outfit choices, as well as an abundance of the color pink. The singer even painted the tips of her locks bright pink during her “Lover” era, in a bold move ahead of the album’s release.
Swift put bad energy to bed in her track, “You Need to Calm Down,” when she sang, “And obsessin’ ’bout somebody else is no fun / And snakes and stones never broke my bones.” Cheerful, hopeful lyrics like, “Livin’ in winter, I am your summer,” in her single, “ME!” signified a happier phase for Swift, one where she wasn’t using fighting words to avenge her enemies. With tracks like “Cruel Summer,” Swifties could believe in romance again.
