Taylor Swift's "LWYMMD" Looks Served Up Classic Britney Spears Vibes
After being accused of borrowing heavily from Beyoncé, Taylor Swift's looks in the “LWYMMD” video went in an astonishing direction that absolutely no one expected: Britney Spears. Pure, unbridled, 2003-heyday Britney Spears. Altogether, the music video for "Look What You Made Me Do" is rife with pop culture references, such as the line 'em up dancing of Beyoncé's "Formation" and the bird cage performance prison of both Miley Cyrus and Lindsay Lohan. But nothing is so prominently woven into the narrative as B. Spears.
From the way the video cuts from one scenario the another, to the quick-change artist fashion and synthetic beats, T. Swift leaves no Brit Brit music video trope unturned — particularly with her fashion. At the 40 second mark, an Old Hollywood, red lipstick-bearing Taylor is bathing in and biting on diamonds, which echoes not only the retro glam makeup Britney sports in "Lucky," but the poor, lonely little rich girl ethos. The black leather-clad Taylor wrangling the podium at 1:50? Straight up "Toxic," complete with a tough girl catsuit and red accents. And if you look closely at the parade of Taylor personalities at 3:54, you'll spot Tay in a scarlet ringleader's costume, as if plucked directly out of "Circus."
Perhaps the most undeniable parallel is the heavy-on-arm-movements dance interlude at 3:50, that harkened Taylor to the OG Pop Princess so blatantly, it functions as the nail in the old T. Swift's coffin.
As usual, Twitter users were among the first to identify the correlation.
If you're skeptical at this point, examine how Taylor's re-emergence is centered around a snake motif (see: Taylor Swift's serpent-emblazoned merch), an icon made famous in pop music by none other than Britney Spears, at none other than the MTV Video Music Awards, back in 2001.
While Team Taylor might hide behind the ole "imitation is highest form of flattery" excuse, considering that "Look What You Made Me Do" is a revenge diss track, perhaps Taylor's copycat persona is payback for the time that Britney Spears forgot about meeting Taylor Swift.
