Intro for August 27, 2025

Dear Gossips,   

A member of our Substack community, The Squawk, dropped a link in the daily chat yesterday to an article at The Guardian about how everyone from brands to politicians yesterday leveraged Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s engagement to promote themselves or their products. During what was supposed to be a slow week ahead of Labour Day weekend in North America, TNT pushed everyone off the front page and took over. Their personal happiness is a gift for everyone else – social media activity is popping and media outlets are trying to stretch that out as far as they can. 

For example, PEOPLE published an “exclusive” last night about a civilian couple and something something about a Halloween costume and their reaction on the record to the news that TNT is getting married. 

I’m sure these are lovely people, but is it newsworthy that two people dressed up as Taylor and Travis before there was a Taylor and Travis? I guess it is to someone – and this the mini-industry that’s just emerged out of the latest chapter in Taylor’s life, joining all the other mini-industries that have already been established through the course of her career and public life. There are people who have made careers out of identifying what she wears. What she wears always sells out; the Ralph Lauren dress she had on when Travis proposed was quickly out of stock. I’m sure florists will be doing well over the next few weeks as people try to recreate the woodland fantasy of their engagement setting. 

And then, of course, any time a celebrity gets engaged, the ring becomes a trend. As Vogue noted in their post about Taylor’s bezel-set ring, this was already on trend after Zendaya revealed hers and points out the obvious - that old mine cut diamonds will pop off.

This, of course, is already what we know – plus, again, the rando story about the Halloween couple. We haven’t even gotten to the speculation and the endless reporting on when people think the wedding might be, who might design the wedding dress, where it will take place, etc etc etc. There are probably already TikToks out there from creators all like, “Here’s what I think Taylor will wear to her wedding…” 

And, to be clear, we here at LaineyGossip are certainly benefitting from this economy too. So congratulations, but mostly, THANK YOU, Taylor Swift. You are the greatest for gossip.

Yours in gossip, 

Lainey