Taylor Swift will be the cover star of the January issue of British Vogue, the magazine announced today. She will feature in a 12-page spread styled by the magazine’s new editor-in-chief Edward Enninful, who says he focused on “transform[ing] America’s most fascinating sweetheart” into something edgier. Most notable about the shoot, however, is that it will not be accompanied by a traditional interview; instead, the magazine will feature a “stunning poem” written by Swift “just for Vogue on the timely subject of reinvention and moving on.”
Swift has yet to give an interview during the promotion of her new album Reputation, and the new Vogue marks the first magazine on whose cover she has appeared during this album cycle, aside from her own. Swift’s contentious but also symbiotic relationship with the press is well-documented, especially on Reputation, with its on-the-nose New York Times-styled album cover and frequent lyrical references to gossip (“Reputation precedes me, and rumors are knee-deep,” goes “End Game”). This strategy of agreeing to a lavish photo spread in a glossy, legacy fashion magazine but doing so without subjecting one’s self to an interview may be the new norm for superstars who know the press needs them more than they need the press—Beyoncé famously did the same to American Vogue, appearing on the cover of its vaunted September issue in 2015 along with a story for which she did not need not bother.
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