Before we begin, a disclaimer: I believe that Taylor Swift and Karlie Kloss are in a romantic relationship together. I've come to this conclusion carefully by reading all the signs Taylor has given us through her lyrics, media presence, clothing & jewelry choices, marketing, visuals, and interviews. This is all a theory of what I think has gone down between Karlie and Taylor since 2013.
2013 & Earlier - The Beginning
VS Fashion Show 2013: The first official meeting of Karlie & Taylor was at the 2013 VS Fashion Show.
This may not have been their true first encounter (s/o @sophietv for her amazing work about this, she outlines all the times Kaylor interacted prior to the fashion show in 2013!).
According to a Teen Vogue interview in 2014, Taylor and Karlie were introduced to each other at the same time that Taylor met Emma Stone by Andrew Bevan of Teen Vogue. That was in 2008 at the Young Hollywood Awards.
After that first meeting in 2008, Taylor attended a number of fashion shows that Karlie walked in: Tommy Hilfiger Spring Show (9/16/2009); Rodarte Spring 2012 show in NYC (9/13/2011); Jean-Paul Gauthier in Paris (9/30/2012), Elie Saab Spring/Summer 2013 Show (10/3/2012).
Karlie & Taylor also both attended Roberto Cavalli's 40th Anniversary Party (9/30/2010) and the Met Gala in 2011. Teen Vogue included a quote from Karlie about the Met: "Taylor Swift. I was introduced to her at the Met Gala, and we joked about having a baking date!"
January 17th, 2012: The iconic Twitter interaction between Kaylor finally happens! Taylor's cover story with Vogue includes a quote about Karlie: "I love Karlie Kloss, I want to bake cookies with her!" Karlie tweets at her the same day the cover releases.
2013 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show
By the time the 2013 VS Show rolled around, I think they were already dating in some capacity, and the fashion show was a PR move. If Taylor & Karlie were going to become "close friends" in the public eye, they needed a high-profile, highly documented story about how they met to avoid questions about the nature of their close relationship.
Taylor performed I Knew You Were Trouble (Red) for the show, and she danced with Karlie on stage while 'snow' fell.
"So it goes, you two are dancing in a snow globe round and round." - You Are in Love, 1989
Karlie later revealed in an interview that she had gotten a dramatic haircut during a Vogue shoot just before the VS Fashion Show began. This haircut was a big deal- she changed her look completely without talking to anyone about it, and Vogue asked her to keep it a secret until the shoot dropped. So she showed the VS Fashion Show like "surprise! New hair!" which drew up quite a buzz. Taylor's hair was pretty blonde and long at the time, not fully bleached but certainly lightened up in comparison to her natural hair color.
"flashback when you met me, your buzz cut & my hair bleached" - Dress, reputation
Karlie posted a ton of pictures from this event (most of which were of her and Taylor) on her Instagram. She also starts posting really sappy Instagram posts about being in love.
I think that the November 14th, 2013 post about receiving your favorite flowers from the person you love is about Taylor Swift, but who's to say!
Then, on Friday, December 13th, 2013 (Taylor's 21st birthday, which I think she references in an interview sometime when she's talking about why she loves the number 13) Karlie posts two sugarplum fairy-related photos, capturing the scene in The Nutcracker where snow falls from the sky as delicate performers dressed in white dance along the stage. This is super Taylor-coded, giving YAIL, dancing in the damn snowglobe again.
Interesting caption there, Kar. "#flashbackfriday to the good old days as a sugarplum fairy myself (aka the day I peaked)"
On December 14th, Karlie posts a solo shot on instagram and tags Josh with photo credit (this is hilarious that we let them just tell us whoever took their picture with absolutely no questioning whether they might be lying???). For some reason, I get the feeling that Taylor took this photo for Karlie the morning after her birthday when they were still together from celebrating the night before.
2014 - You're My Best Friend
Taylor buys her massive Tribeca, NY Penthouse apartment in April 2014. The home was actually TWO penthouse apartments next door to each other, and then she bought a third townhouse unit next door in 2017, and in 2018 she bought an additional 3-bedroom unit in the same building. Go off NYC Real Estate Queen! Taylor moved into her iconic Cornelia Street apartment during a round of renovations at her Tribeca home in 2016.
"The inspiration that I found in that [New York] city is kind of hard to describe and hard to compare to any other force of inspiration I've ever experienced in my life." - Taylor Swift, discussing the importance of NYC in an interview with ABC News given on 10/20/2014 ahead of a 1989 promo single release for Welcome to New York (1989). That quote actually reminds me of a lyric from 1989: you understand now why they lost their minds & fought the wars, and why I've spent my whole life trying to put it into words (You Are in Love, 1989).
2015 - Hiding in Plain Sight
1989 era so many public appearances blah blah blah they were girlfriends in public kissgate gay whatever, everyone agrees that Karlie & Taylor were dating in 2015 during 1989 World Tour etc
Politics and Jared Kushner
The unfortunate reality of 2016 was that Donald Trump really did get elected president, and then he really did take office and become the President of the United States from January 2017 - January 2021. (Sadly, none of it was a nightmare or even a collective hallucination, all of this actually happened in the good old U.S. of A., yeehaw!!) The sociopolitical climate in the US is charged, fraught, uncertain, and divided. Even worse for Taylor & Karlie is their closeness to Jared Kushner, Josh's older brother who is married to Ivanka Trump. Jared served as a senior advisor to Donnie Boy for his entire term, and he did such a good job being Don's accomplice in negligent, ethnocentric, homophobic, misogynistic leadership from the White House that he was made the Director of the Office of American Innovation (this entire office was created by Trump in March 2017 and dissolved by Biden in January 2021).
I think (and this is JUST speculating, I have no real evidence compiled yet to back this up, but I'll look for it eventually) Jared Kushner & Ivanka Trump are also in a queer-bearding relationship contract. I'm not going too far into it now, but there's stuff out there for both Jared and Ivanka, like former Trump staffer Noel Casler's allegations that Jared is gay and in an "arranged marriage" with Ivanka, who doesn't care about his sexuality due to her own sexual opportunism and likely queer identity.
If Jared and Ivanka really are queer and in a non-monogamous, mutually beneficial public relationship that allows them to co-parent their three children, then their involvement in the Trump administration makes things pretty damn unsafe if they ever were found out. So, I think that when Trump was elected, the entire Kushner family had to be super locked down to keep both Jared & Ivanka AND Josh & Karlie (and Mikey and Taylor) safe from any unwanted allegations.
Since the Kushner and Hess families hold international influence, wealth, and power, if all these billionaire men were suddenly outed as gay there could be serious economic and political consequences across the globe.
Not so coincidentally, Karlie and Taylor's last public event together was Lorde's birthday on Monday, November 7th, 2016. The 2016 Presidential Election took place on Tuesday, November 8th, 2016, which sealed the fate of the Kushner name to be attached to Donald Trump's Presidency. I believe that if Trump had not won (which no one expected him to do) Karlie & Taylor would not have started this Love Blackout.
This photo is the end of Kaylor's public friendship, and the start of their Love Blackout (shout out to @sophietv again for being the BEST!!)
Joe Alwyn - A Perfectly Palatable Person
I'm sure when the team realized Trump might actually win the election, they started looking for an acceptable beard. Joe really was a great choice for Taylor's life: he had features similar to Karlie's (light eyes, tall, blonde hair), he didn't have much going on with his own reputation, he had a sparkling clean dating history - because Taylor was his first ever girlfriend, he was a fellow artist and was already media trained, and he was gay, too!
Met at the Met - May 2016
red herring lyric (tied to VS 2013 show)
First Reports - May 16, 2017
The Sun broke the news of Taylor Swift and Joe Alwyn dating on May 16, 2017. According to Tree Paine a source, they had been secretly dating for months. It's later assumed that they started dating a few months before January 1, 2017, (revealed in a Lover journal released in 2019). Some sleuthing swifties connect a lyrical swap in the acoustic cover of "September" by Earth, Wind, and Fire as performed by our girl Taylor (Friday, April 13, 2018) to the diary entry and determine their anniversary was probably September 28, 2016.
Supportive Boyfriend Award? - December 8, 2017
Joe does something of heroic power. He goes to a concert with his popstar girlfriend. He apparently attended Taylor's performance in the iHeartRadio JingleBall in NYC and "stayed for the whole show and they later left together as well." lmao wut, okay, lots of people stayed for the whole show, this is such a boring relationship roll out, especially for Miss Extra!! (lovingly)
Toe is Officially Official - May 8th, 2018
Joe finally takes his instagram off private mode and posts a picture of himself, alone, next to a big cactus. Taylor also posts a picture of herself, alone, near the same big cactus. Alright, I guess that *technically* counts as giving the public some confirmation that you two know each other, but I bet Tree was mad as hell when that was their "official instagram announcement."
Then, Joe joins Taylor at the opening night of the Reputation Stadium tour in Glendale, AZ. He wore a baseball cap low to cover his face and "stay incognito" (Joe, babe, no one knows who you are...but like okay i guess, be weird about your fame that you literally wanted and signed up for). But during the song Gorgeous apparently Taylor pointed at Joe in the VIP tent, while he proudly filmed her.
Taylor travels around the country for the Reputation Stadium Tour from May-November 2018. The Rep tour is SO, SO GAY, like Jesus Christ Lesbian Jesus save us from all the rainbow and bisexual flagging!! Check my twitter thread for a full analysis of how gay the Dress performance is.
Reputation was released on November 10, 2017.I consider Reputation to be Taylor & Karlie's "I'm so in love that I might stop breathing" album. This is the honeymoon, this is the up all night, can't stop, won't stop, I need you more than air kind of love.
This album is all about the pining and desperately waiting, hiding their anticipation, hands shaking from holding back from touching each other where anyone might see them. Much like Taylor's own media presence & public interactions in the Reputation era, Kaylor had gone dark, nobody heard from them for months, but they're doing better than they ever were.
2018 - Desperate Measures
The honeymoon phase ends in 2018 as shit in America gets worse for queer folks. The sociopolitical climate is getting more dangerous now, and Trump's constant attacks on LGBTQIA+ rights & safety is making matters much worse. Jared Kushner & Ivanka Trump are in the media a lot now, which means all eyes are on Josh, too.
Toe is Officially Official - May 8, 2018
Joe finally takes his instagram off private mode and posts a picture of himself, alone, next to a big cactus. Taylor also posts a picture of herself, alone, near the same big cactus. Alright, I guess that *technically* counts as giving the public some confirmation that you two know each other, but I bet Tree was mad as hell when that was their "official instagram announcement."
Then, Joe joins Taylor at the opening night of the Reputation Stadium tour in Glendale, AZ. He wore a baseball cap low to cover his face and "stay incognito" (Joe, babe, no one knows who you are...but like okay i guess, be weird about your fame that you literally wanted and signed up for). But during the song Gorgeous apparently Taylor pointed at Joe in the VIP tent, while he proudly filmed her.
Taylor travels around the country for the Reputation Stadium Tour from May-November 2018. The Rep tour is SO, SO GAY, like Jesus Christ Lesbian Jesus save us from all the rainbow and bisexual flagging!! Check my twitter thread for a full analysis of how gay the Dress performance is.
Instead of hosting her usual big 4th of July Party at the Holiday House in RI, Toe goes on vacation to Turks & Caicos to celebrate the holiday. They call Backgrid to take a few pictures of them "frolicking" at the beach together. I'm so convinced, they're in LOVE!! Can't get enough of each other!! They totally hold hands all the time, this feels so natural and not weird at all!
Karlie posts a few photos in a row about the 4th of July this year. First, she's in her Anti-Hero colored pajamas with her left eye closed in a wink, sitting on a few suitcases, captioned "Kissin Paris Goodbye. *kissy face emoji*"
Then, another post on the 4th itself is of a WMAG stylized photoshoot where Karlie is a cowboy, for the Wild West with Cowboy Karlie campaign. It's captioned "Going into the 4th like *cowboy emoji* @/wmag" EXCUSE ME. "You're a cowboy like me, perched in the dark, telling all the rich folks anything they wanna hear like it could be love I could be the way forward only if they pay for it"
The implications of a Cowboy Like Me reference and this photo's timing has on their engagement story has me dead. I'll do a whole lyrical analysis and tie in of it soon.
And then she posts this pic of her swimming in an unidentifiable body of water. Could it be Turks & Caicos? Maybe!
Joshlie announces their engagement on July 24, 2018 while the two are on a vacation in XYZ? People Magazine reports that the proposal "took place a few weeks ago during a romantic weekend together in upstate New York." So they got engaged sometime in the beginning of July, right?
On July 10th, she posts a video of herself voguing down the runway with "This Kiki is Marvelous" playing in the background during Paris Fashion Week in September 2013. Her performance was considered one of the highlights of Paris Fashion Week. She captioned the video: Mood. @/jpgaultierofficial.
Quick question for Karlie, why do you feel the same way you felt before you went on stage for a make or break performance out of your comfort zone? You performed incredibly but it could have easily turned out very differently. Why would you be feeling like that right around the time of your engagement to Josh Kushner?
Karlie's instagram post on July 16, 2018 captioned "bestest of weekends with my bestest of friends" included group photos and a video of her & four girlfriends from her childhood.
So she got engaged and then spent a weekend with her friends, who then commented on instagram pictures from the weekend saying "remember, there's nothing better than old friends!" Why the heck are they talking about friends so much!? She literally just got engaged to Jo- ohhh.... Oh, right, he's gay, and she's gay. Old friends. Ahhhh.
Taylor responds to the engagement news breaking by having special guest, Haley Kiyoko aka Lesbian Jesus, join her for the Rep show at Gillette Stadium on July 27, 2018. Taylor specifically requests to sing Curious with Haley, which is a song about a lesbian woman singing to her ex-lover who is now dating a man, asking her ex if she lets him touch her the way she used to. So gay, so timely, Taylor is a petty bitch & I love her.
Do the girls back home touch you like I do? Delicate (Reputation)
The Wedding, October 18, 2018
Karlie wears her custom Dior gown and very amicably marries Joshua in someone's backyard, it looks like. Things seem perfectly pleasant, almost like watching a wedding scene featuring two actors with no sexual chemistry whatsoever.
2019 - Every Time I Don't, I Almost Do
Lover Promo is all very gay, very loud, very comingoutlor.
ME! out now! on Lesbian visibility day, April 26, 2019.
YNTCD music video out on June 16, 2019.
The Wedding, Part Two: Cowboy Karlie and Her Cowboy, Her Man
Karlie Kloss and Joshua Kushner celebrate their wedding again with a private group of friends from June 20-23rd, 2019 in Wyoming. It's cowboy themed, for whatever reason.
This wedding into a honeymoon in Africa would have been a wonderful strategy to keep the spotlight off of Karlie in Taylor Swift's immediately impending plan to come out on June 30th, 2019. Go read @sophietv's incredible post that details the failed coming out (fuck Scooter Braun).
February: Karlie is in Paris, Taylor is advertising The Man MV (out February 27).
March: Quarantine begins March 16th & Taylor starts writing folklore almost immediately, which means that the events in folklore have already happened before COVID begins.
MORE ON THE WAY! I've got:
What happens when Karlie gets back to the US?
How does the Lover era go?
Lover social media & marketing presence
9.9.2019 - Lover in Paris performance
10.11.2019 - Sad Girl TinyDesk (& ring)
Continued sus social media from TSwift
2020: The Great War (3.16.2020, Quarantine begins)
Lonely Millennial Woman Covered in Cat Hair
2022: Go Viral (Midnights, Red TV)
2023: Midnights, Eras, Speak Now TV, Broken Toe, 1989 TV, Kaylor Renaissance
