polly pocket mall

Taylor Swift made her bones singing about 15; both literally in her song “Fifteen,” which earned her a VMA, the ire of Kanye, and name recognition from pretty much everyone in America, and as a general concept, that wobbly, diary-charted age between dolls and dinner dates. Much of her catalog draws on emotions as they’re felt by the Jenny Starrs of the world, who see the adult world’s glamour, its gold-plated astronauts, and its J. Mendel dresses. But Swift, who left the public high school that provided the material for her first album at 16 when her music career started heating up, knows too well that the adult world also has its haters and its Mayers , and that castles come with mortgages.

Based on the demographics of Saturday’s concert, Swift manages to appeal to fans on both sides of the teen-adult divide—current dress-up-box princesses, and those still nostalgic for their outgrown tiaras. Among the 51,000 attendees were chains of sisters and cousins in matching puffy-paint and felt-letter T-shirts, gangs of high-school sleepover buddies and their similarly ponytailed moms, cowgirl-booted sorority sisters and their long-suffering boyfriends, and even the occasional chest-painted bro, who may or may not have thought he was attending an Eagles game.