Taylor Swift wore a dress by Istanbul-based label Raisa Vanessa at the 56th Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame gala, held at Nashville’s Music City Center on 26 October 2026. Honoured at the ceremony as the youngest artist in the institution’s history, Swift chose a strapless burgundy velvet mini dress from the label’s Fall-Winter 2026 collection. The label also shared the look on its official account.
See Raisa Vanessa's post on Instagram
Embroidered velvet
According to The Express Tribune, the dress features colourful floral embroidery in shades of orange, purple and green. Hello! describes the piece as a romantic velvet mini, highlighting its sequinned embellishment and orange floral details. Marie Claire read the look as a choice recalling Swift’s Speak Now era.
The accessories set up a glittering contrast with the velvet. According to The Express Tribune, Swift wore a 65-carat pear-cut diamond necklace by Leviev with 6.25-carat diamond earrings, along with purple Jimmy Choo heels with crystal ankle straps. Her hair was half up, and her make-up was kept simple with pale pink lipstick and a light blush. The reported value of the necklace is 2.4 million dollars.
A second meeting with the label
This is not the first time Swift and Raisa Vanessa have crossed paths. Marie Claire recalls that the artist arrived at the 2019 Billboard Music Awards in a ruffled lavender design by the label. Founded by twin sisters Raisa and Vanessa Sason, the label grew, as Base Istanbul tells it, from a journey the sisters began at 18 by designing swimwear; today it runs ready-to-wear and couture lines side by side.
The label’s own description emphasises an avant-garde, brave language close to architectural forms. Raisa Vanessa has named its Fall-Winter 2026 season Héritières and has been presenting the collection’s pieces one by one on Instagram in recent weeks.
What happened at the ceremony?
Swift was honoured in the 20-year career category for contemporary songwriters and artists. She was introduced on stage by country music star Brad Paisley. According to Hello!, Swift opened her speech with a joke about Paisley and went on to share her thoughts on Nashville, songwriting and fame. This year’s honourees also included Lyle Lovett, Bruce Channel, Shawn Camp and Lee Thomas Miller.
The language of the look chosen for this honour, in a city closely tied to the start of her career, is also striking. Dark velvet and floral motifs create a romantic mood, while the large diamonds add ceremonial weight to the evening. In our view, this balance also explains why the dress stays so easily in the mind.
The view from Türkiye
In our view, the value of this look goes beyond a celebrity photograph. One of the world’s most watched artists chose a current-season piece by a Turkish label on one of the important nights of her career. Choices like this directly raise the visibility of Turkish designers making their mark internationally. By reviving a connection that began seven years ago, the label has also served as a reminder of Turkish fashion’s place on the global red carpet.
Sources
- Hello!: Taylor Swift’s Nashville look
- The Express Tribune: Velvet dress and 65-carat necklace
- Marie Claire: A Speak Now-inspired look
- Base Istanbul: Raisa & Vanessa
- Raisa Vanessa’s official Instagram account
Image: Nashville skyline (representative image, not from the ceremony) — Quintin Soloviev, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0
The Instagram posts in this article are official posts by the respective accounts, published using Instagram’s embed tool; image rights belong to their owners.