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.
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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!
