“Love it,” Taylor Swift says on the set of “The Fate of Ophelia”‘s kaleidoscopic music video, playing in theaters now as part of the rollout for The Life of a Showgirl<\/em>,<\/em> her twelfth album. She’s watching a playback of a bit of choreography\u2014and, unbeknownst to her, sharing her thesis for the era’s crystal-coated aesthetic. “Can I do one more to beat it?”<\/p>\n In the video, Swift transforms into different showgirls\u2014or rather, performers\u2014from throughout the ages: the model who depicts Ophelia in Sir John Everett Millais’s 1851 painting of the drowning noblewoman, wearing a white linen gown and a flowing blonde wig; a dancer at the center of a Busby Berkeley routine, complete with a shimmering, customized Area bodysuit and pailette swim cap; a cabaret star in a broken-mirror dress; a Sarah J. Maas-esque heroine at sea in a silver Paolo Sebastian gown. Finally, she appears as Taylor Swift of the 2020s: Kelsey Randall crystalline naked dress, shaggy fur jacket, catching a football at a raucous concert after-party.<\/p>\n This sequence comes in at just under four minutes, but it captures the same marathon energy of Swift’s 149-stop Eras Tour<\/em> in its swirl of quick-changes and fast-motion evolution. Those shows, which cover her entire career and discography, were the inspiration for this album. While the lyrics of The Life of a Showgirl<\/em> <\/em>go, as Swift has said in interviews, “behind the curtain,” the outfits she’s wearing in the accompanying visuals are all about center-stage showgirls with a wealth of theatrical history. And the level of care behind each costume shows just how dedicated she remains to hitting her marks\u2014and earning the audience’s applause.<\/p>\n