Decoding Taylor Swift's Coachella Outfit, From a Travis Kelce Shoutout to a 'Reputation' Skirt

After an eight year hiatus from the festival circuit, Taylor Swift made her grand return to the California desert for Coachella on Saturday, April 13. Her outfit showed just how much her style has changed since her last appearance—and sweetly referenced where she is in life now.

Swift cheered on her collaborators Jack Antonoff (performing with his band, Bleachers) and Ice Spice (rapping solo) with boyfriend Travis Kelce by her side. She chose a piece of merch for the occasion—just not for the performers onstage. The first immediately obvious item of Taylor's festival outfit was a baseball cap embroidered with the logo for New Heights, Travis's podcast. (That's the very same place where Kelce first mentioned going to see Taylor perform last July, where he failed to give her a friendship bracelet beaded with his phone number. Oh, how the dominoes have cascaded since then.)

Otherwise, Taylor Swift's Coachella outfit didn't follow festival dress code conventions. She dressed in head-to-toe black, starting with a slick, patent leather jacket and a black T-shirt underneath. Then came a pleated skort with an adjustable buckle garter by the TikTok-viral athleticwear brand Halara. Rounding out the look, she laced up a pair of chunky sneakers by Gucci and carried a crossbody leather bag by Stella McCartney. Her jewelry stack included gold hoops at the base and smaller charm earrings above them.

The last time the "Anti-Hero" singer attended Coachella, it was 2016 and her hair was freshly chopped and bleached for the upcoming Met Gala. (She and fans both reference the look as "Bleachella.") Swift had also worn a varsity jacket promoting Calvin Harris's single "This Is What You Came For." All the photos she shared of the look were since deleted from her Instagram.

Taylor Swift being Taylor Swift, the monochromatic look might not simply be her endorsement of the chunky sneaker trend re-emerging on runways from Coach to Cecilie Bahnsen. Black outfits with a sexier edge were a cornerstone of her Reputation style era. So were outfits including Gucci, a designer she started wearing more often in 2017, including in the Look What You Made Me Do music video. All those parallels could be another wink at Reputation (Taylor's Version). The last time Swift went to Coachella was also the year before Rep first debuted, after all.

Of course, fans have seen Reputation where Taylor Swift actually dropped hints for another project. Take the 2024 Grammys, where Swift arrived in a white Schiaparelli gown and black opera gloves. Fans interpreted the color scheme as a sign Rep's rerecord was nigh; Swift accepted an award that evening and announced that, actually, she had an entirely new album on the way. The pleats in Swift's Coachella skirt are also consistent with the Miu Miu and Sandy Liang minis she's worn to promote The Tortured Poets Department ever since.

There's more to decode where Saturday night's look came from. Swift's eleventh studio album, The Tortured Poets Department, finally arrives on Friday, April 19. She's spent the lead-up to the album in preppy uniforms that seemingly reference the academic title, including a range of polos, platform loafers, and crewneck sweaters. Fans will know after the first listen whether she's embedded more Easter eggs in all the outfits she's been wearing. For now, they can enjoy that "Bleachella" isn't her last Coachella outfit on the record.