Bust out your evidence boards and prettiest pushpins, because Taylor Swift may have gifted her websleuth fanbase a tasty little holiday treat the Monday after Easter.
That’s when the “Anti-Hero” singer — who is known for dropping Easter eggs in her music, lyrics, videos and clothing to hint about her latest projects and personal life — made her first appearance in New York City after her rumored split from actor Joe Alwyn.
In paparazzi photos obtained by TMZ, the “Shake it Off” singer was wearing an off-the-shoulder black top and jeans with a crystal butterfly cutout on while leaving a restaurant in Manhattan on Monday. Fans soon hypothesized that the butterfly on her jeans might signify how she feels about her reported breakup.
“Taylor is not seen unless she wants to be seen,” one person pointed out on TikTok to emphasize why fans analyze what Swift wears like it’s a cold case.
Leah Puttkammer via Getty Images
As one Swiftie on Twitter noted, the singer told Entertainment Weekly in a 2019 video that she sometimes uses butterflies to represent leaving darkness.
“A lot of the time, I’ll pick something that I think symbolizes something else, like … a butterfly, which is kind of just breaking free of that darkness and, you know, fluttering into the light,” she told the outlet while promoting her “Lover” album at the time.
The Instagram account for Taylor Swift Style, a blog that covers the musician’s fashion choices, also floated a similar theory about butterflies.
“There’s something to me that feels highly symbolic of the butterfly here, not just in its nod to Lover, but of its original concept of rebirth and renewal,” read a post about Swift’s jeans.
Speculation about Swift’s outfit also fluttered around on TikTok.
Some on TikTok felt the butterfly on Swift’s jeans actually hinted at a re-recorded release of her debut self-titled album, “Taylor Swift.” Butterflies were a major motif in the 2006 record.
But a lot of other people leaned into the breakup narrative.
One TikToker even went a step further by comparing Swift’s off-the-shoulder black top to Swift’s version of Princess Diana’s black revenge dress.
Regardless of what Swift’s outfit may or not mean, the “Blank Space” singer and Alwyn have not publicly confirmed reports of their breakup.