A Taylor Swift superfan from Huddersfield answered a call for help from the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.

Dr Iona Murphy, an English Literature lecturer at the University of Huddersfield, shared her passion for all things Swiftie when she became one of four Taylor Swift Superfan Advisors hired by the museum.

Iona answered a call from the V&A for Swifties to help them advise on Swiftie fandom and the Eras Tour in the UK for the new Taylor Swift | Songbook Trail.

Iona became one of just four whittled down from over 1,000 applicants, after colleagues at the university told her that she would be the ideal person to lend the V&A her expertise.

As well as being a fan, Iona sees links between the singer’s lyrics and some of the writers that she discusses with students in her role at the university, but helping the V&A tapped into her admiration for Taylor’s talents as a writer and performer.

The trail, on until September 8, places costumes and items from the singer for visitors to see throughout the galleries of the famous museum in South Kensington.

“It’s just been incredible,” said Iona, who showed fans around the trail at the V&A’s recent preview night.

 

 

“I just never imagined that I would actually get the job. It was one of those things you apply for thinking ‘that would be my dream job’ because everyone listens to me talk about Taylor Swift all the time for free. It was an absolute dream come true.

“There was an advert from the V&A, which ended up on BBC News and a lot of other news sites. Quite a few people sent it to me, various colleagues said ‘this is perfect for you’ and some of my friends were sending it and telling me ‘you’ve got to go for it!’

“The application process was actually really fun, as it was quite creative. I had to pick three items from the V&A and write a little bit about how they could be related to Taylor Swift.

“I picked this piece of fabric that was a homage to the poet Emily Dickinson. I wrote about the parallels between Emily Dickinson as a writer and Taylor Swift, and since then it has been revealed that they are sixth cousins – so there is a kind of very, very loose relation there.

“I waited five weeks before I could tell anybody, and it was so hard because I had told some people about the interview and they were asking: ‘Have you heard anything yet?’ I had but I had to tell them I was waiting to hear when in fact I knew I’d got it!”

Iona’s PhD indulged one of her other passions with a study of Sylvia Plath which saw her work closely with Heather Clark, the university’s former professor of contemporary poetry and author of Red Comet, the acclaimed 2021 biography of Plath.

The trail has also sparked more questions on how to engage young people with culture in a less static and more interactive way, with Iona having delivered a lecture at the V&A on August 3.

“This trail is about accessibility as well, people do not have to pay to see it – a lot of people didn’t get tickets for the tour.

“It’s nice to be able to engage with The Eras Tour on some level in a way that’s not going to cost anything, and it’s to do with engaging younger people in museums.

“I hope it prompts people to start to think about lyrics as poetry, that this can help make poetry itself far more accessible. That is something that Taylor Swift does really well for a much wider audience.”