It was inevitable: At SOME point we would have to start covering other things again, now that the wedding is officially behind is. So although we initially screamed when we found out the Billboard Music Awards were scheduled right on top of Harry and Meghan’s nuptials, it’s actually probably good to have a big event to dive back into, to force us to move along. And what better way to start than with The Return of Swifty, who won for Top Female Artist — and name-checked her tourmates, Charli XCX and Camila Cabello, which was nice — and Top-Selling Album. (I didn’t realize Reputation was doing that well. I streamed it and it was a monotonous and uninspiring experience, which bummed me out because I can’t help loving a T.Swift jam.)

Anyway, I wondered what Taylor’s style would evolve into now that she’s touring with an album where she’s kind of casting herself as a dark angel, and the answer appears to be that she’s going backward a bit, which I did not expect. This custom dress is, essentially, just really weird on her. There’s a heavyness to it, and a stodginess even despite the leg slit, and it’s not particularly fashion-forward or even pleassant. It KIND OF looks like a prom dress she was buried in and then exhumed, which I guess works with the zombie/Old Taylor Is Dead parts of “Look What You Made Me Do,” but that’s not a particularly delightful aesthetic and may have been an accident besides. I don’t know. This is a woman who, for better or worse, once showed up in a designer leotard on the red carpet and spent all of her 1989 run taking some fashion chances. This feels like she actually DID go back to Old Taylor, and meditated with her to see what she might have worn to the 2018 CMAs if she had remained a country artist.

[Photos: WENN]