When Kanye West decided to use a full-frontal nude photo of Taylor Swift as a piece of “art” for his Instagram page, fans of the “Trouble” singer were, well, “troubled.”
After all, it was not that long ago that “Tay-Tay” announced to her “swifties” that she didn’t need to take off her clothes to sell her music.
The question of how and why Kanye West and his wife, Kim Kardashian, had fully nude photos of Taylor Swift was, of course, not asked — but either way, it wasn’t right of Kanye West to release private photos of someone, especially without their expressed permission.
So, according to OK! Magazine, Taylor Swift took matters into her own hands, and decided that she was going to take control of her own nude image.
The first thing she did was make clear that the “nude” photo that Kanye West posted was of her wax figure, not of her.
Then, after she made that clear to both her fans and the press that the picture Kanye posted was not, specifically, of her, she began to take control of her image. She slowly but surely started to embrace her sensual side. She was okay, said the outlet, with showing off her legs and even a little bit of cleavage, but she wouldn’t go much further than that, either now or in the future.
Thank you @Edward_Enninful, Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott for your passion, spirit and contagious laughter on set. @BritishVogue #NewVogue pic.twitter.com/cQiufPKkDS
— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) December 4, 2017
But, critics noted that Taylor Swift was nude in her new video for “Ready For It?”
That is, of course, what they thought.
It was only recently that it was revealed that Taylor wasn’t fully nude, but rather, she was wearing a nude-colored body suit that was “edited out” in post-production. Clever!
But the most interesting thing about all of this, of course, is that Taylor has done all this without losing sight of who she is as a person. In the same breath, according to the outlet, she’s still improving as a person, and as an artist. This means that if her “brand” calls for her to be more mature — and thus, show some skin — she’s all for it.
The difference, however, is that it’s Taylor — not a record label, not another artist, and not even her boyfriend — that has control over what skin she shows, and what skin she hides.
As Taylor Swift herself has said, “sometimes girl power means the power to not have to dress to the nines!”