WATCH: Taylor Swift expresses, “Meeting the handsome and lovely guy has been a blessing for me. Since I met him, he has always put a smile on my face and made me feel like a precious woman

One afternoon this spring, the twenty-one-year-old country pop star Taylor Swift was in the back seat of a black Escalade going up Madison Avenue, on her way to the annual Costume Institute Gala at the Metropolitan Museum.

Swift is known for sparkly, beaded dresses that make her look like a flapper, but she had adopted a more polished look for the ball: a gauzy, black-and-peach dress by the designer J. Mendel spilled its train around her feet; her hair was up; her lips were dark red and her eyes were smoky. Swift was sending text messages. None of the car’s other passengers—her bodyguard, Greg, a burly former Washington, D.C., cop; her publicist, Paula Erickson, a tall blond woman in a black blazer—spoke. The only sound came from Swift’s iPhone, which emitted an occasional ding!