



1 / 10 Chevron Chevron Photographed by Mikael Jansson, Vogue, March 2015 Shooting Stars The two recently road-tripped through Big Sur. “Taylor’s a really good driver,” Kloss says. Saint Laurent by Hedi Slimane woven Lurex dress, blue leather belt (on Kloss), sequined V-neck sweater, and studded belt (on Swift). On Kloss: Barton Perreira sunglasses. Cartier ring. On Swift: Ray-Ban sunglasses. Fashion Editor: Tonne Goodman

Taylor Swift and Karlie Kloss have forged the kinds of careers—and the kind of friendship—that people dream about.

One of the first things Taylor Swift did after moving from Nashville to her sprawling two-story penthouse in New York’s Tribeca was cover a wall of her den with framed, blown-up Polaroids of the most important people in her life. “This is when me and Karlie first met,” she says, pointing to a picture of her grinning and hugging model Karlie Kloss backstage at the 2013 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, where Kloss walked the runway in pink underwear and giant psychedelic wings and Swift performed with Fall Out Boy. The caption, handwritten in Sharpie, reads BEST FRIENDS FOREVER VS2013 and feels rather prescient given how close the two have become over the past year or so, with a road trip to Big Sur (dreamily documented on Instagram), restaurant outings, shopping excursions, sleepovers, texting marathons, ModelFit and SoulCycle sessions, and a second joint VS outing late last year in London, where, as the pair walked side by side down the runway in black lace, they exchanged “Can you believe this?!” grins—two friends on top of the world.

Lena Dunham and Cara Delevingne also make the Polaroid wall, as does Swift’s younger brother, Austin, 22, a senior at Notre Dame, standing next to his sister in the matching red plaid adult onesies she bought for her family last Christmas. A Polaroid captioned squirrel invasion documents the first time Swift met Lorde (whom Swift calls by her given name, Ella), as the two set out for dinner at Shake Shack in Madison Square Park only to be attacked by rodents. “We were taking these photos, and all of a sudden, like in a horror movie, there were squirrels sitting on our shoulders trying to eat our food,” says Swift, reenacting the moment. “Perched, like parrots! They’re like, ‘We deserve French fries, and we’re going to take them from you.’ ”

Taylor Swift vs. Karlie Kloss—Who's the Best, Best Friend?

Swift click-clacks through her kitchen to her living room in black stiletto Louboutins, plops down on a burnt-orange velvet sofa, wiggles into a slouch, and props those heels up on a tufted brown-leather ottoman. Everything in the apartment is rendered in velvet, leather, and wood in dark, rich earth and jewel tones, from her rosewood Steinway grand piano to her pool table (where VS models Behati Prinsloo and Lily Aldridge apparently proved themselves to be quite the sharks when they came over earlier in the week).

It’s two days before her twenty-fifth birthday, and Swift is brimming with the confidence of a young woman who’s come into her own. It’s been quite a year: She not only moved to New York, away from her family; she’s also taken risks with her sound, stepping back from the world of country to embrace the throwback purity of eighties pop—with amazing success. “Blank Space,” a defiant (and impossible-not-to-sing-along-to) response to the media’s depiction of her as a crazed man-eater, enjoyed a seven-week run atop the Billboard Hot 100. Swift also became the first female in the chart’s 56-year history to replace herself at No. 1 (her earlier single was the now-ubiquitous “Shake It Off”). Both are from her remarkable new album, 1989, named after the year she was born, which has sold more than six million copies and become, along the way, the fastest-moving rec­ord of the past decade. Saturday Night Live, meanwhile, aired a parody commercial for Swiftamine, a drug to treat the epidemic of vertigo in adults who suddenly realize how much they love Taylor Swift. “People are finally starting to discuss her artistry—how she’s on the level of some of the great all-time songwriters,” says Jack Antonoff of the band fun., who’s co-written several songs with Swift and likens her deeply personal storytelling to new chapters of a book the whole world wants to read. “The other day my grandmother was asking me about 1989. We’re all talking about it. In my lifetime, I haven’t experienced that since Michael Jackson—that one artist who stands above and unites us all.”