There’s a “Wild Dream” coming out of a very cool 6-year-old name Lilly Neitzert. And, it’s to meet Taylor Swift. Every Tuesday, she gets to catch a little glimpes of what that might look like when Lilly dresses up like her idol. And, the results are unbelievable. It’s like looking into a tiny little mirror!
Lilly just loves Taylor. She’ll be having a birthday party in six months and has decided she wants a Taylor Swift theme party! “So far her [theme] ideas,” says mom Sara, “are ‘pin the tails on Taylor’s cats’ and ‘Taylor Swift Karaoke.'” She also wants to give each invitee Taylor’s 1989 CD as the party favor. “You should hear her ideas for the cake!” says Sara. Lilly is even planning to invite Swift!
But, that’s not all. This little pop princess has gone viral! Sara’s Instagram account has well over 7000 followers and the posts have reached as far as Japan. You remember Sara Neitzert, right? We featured her and husband Andy a few years back on their amazing work as independent film makers! Lilly actually doesn’t want to work in “the biz” but wants to be a helicopter pilot! Of course, if Taylor doesn’t make her a double for all of her music videos!
Well, they have a little star in the making! Good Morning America has even covered the story! Well, we sat down with little Lilly and mom, Sara this week to chat about her “Love Story” with Taylor Swift:
Bold Magazine: Let’s start from the beginning, how did this start?
Lilly: I just love Taylor so much and I wanted to dress like her! And I LOVE to pose!
Sara: For a while, each night as a family, we would watch some music videos together and Lilly and I would dance along. That was right about the time Shake It Off came out and we couldn’t get enough of it! Lilly asked to watch more of TS’s videos and she just fell in love with her music. Lilly loved all of her clothes and repeatedly asked if she could have dresses and outfits just like hers. So we started taking photos and thought it would be fun to recreate some of the poses.
BM: What has the response been so far?
L: I think lots of people like it. My Nana and Grandma like it the most!
S: Once ABC shared the article about Lilly’s “Taylor Tuesday,” things got a little crazy. I never thought I’d say this, but my phone was actually blowing up! I understand what that means now! haha! We have had a lot of inquiries for interviews and I started feeling a little bit uncomfortable with it actually. We still have a big response on Instagram every time we post something, but I have been more careful about posting lately.
BM: What does Lilly think about the response?
S: At first we told Lilly about people liking her photos, but we don’t talk about it anymore. We don’t want it to go to her head or want her to think she needs to measure her self worth in how many Instagram likes she gets. I see that too much with kids and even adults these days and I don’t want her to fall into that, especially not at the age of six.
BM: Lilly has been featured by some blogs and social media pages. What’s been the best experience so far?
S: I think the best experience has been the response from Japan. It’s amazing how people on the other side of the world are liking photos of Lilly. We showed Lilly where Japan is on a map and googled a little about Japan with her. I have always wanted to visit Japan, and now Lilly does too. I am hoping we can go someday!
BM: Japan? Tell us more!
I get messages everyday from Lilly’s Instagrammers in Japan. Most of them speak very limited English, but they all say “I love you!” and “You are so cute!”. Some have asked us to come to Japan. More than anything I wish we could! That kind of trip just isn’t in our budget right now. I am obsessed with Japanese candy and I’ve passed that on to Lilly! Lilly and I get a subscription box every month filled with Japanese snacks and stationary called Kawaii Box. We post photos on Instagram and then our new Japanese friends tell us all about the snacks and stuff! It’s pretty cool and helpful because we don’t know what the packages say!
BM: So, how do you all decide which photo to replicate?
L: My mom shows me some pictures on her phone and I look at magazines. I like to pick pictures where I like her pose and clothes! I wanted to cut my hair because I want to look like Taylor swift.
S: We let Lilly choose, but sometimes we have to veto some of her choices because they aren’t practical or appropriate.
BM: Do you have to find props and clothing? Does it get expensive?
S: We try to choose photos that have simple clothes and props. Everything we do is very budget friendly! One of the photos we did we used a towel for the white background. In the Wildest Dreams photo we did, Lilly and I made her necklace and earrings out of aluminum foil! Most of the outfits we choose are plain and sometimes Lilly has even worn a shirt backwards because the front had a picture on it. We have purchased a few things for some of the photos, like for the blank Space picnic scene one, we bought the gummy worms, animal cookies and chocolate milk. The most money we spent was on the fabric for her black lace Blank Space dress, which I sewed her for Halloween. My sister actually bought most of the fabric for it. The dress took me almost 20 hours to sew, and I had to piece together elements from different patterns to make a dress similar to the one in the video. It was also a challenge to make an age appropriate version. I am very proud of that dress!
BM: So, here’s the question…has Taylor reached out at all?
S: We are just doing this for fun. We would certainly not be disappointed if she never reached out and honestly, we would be extremely surprised if she did.
BM: Have you tried reaching out to Taylor? Will you?
S: Other than tagging Taylor on Instagram, Tumblr, and Twitter, I do not know how to reach her. She has not reached out to us. I get now though why she hasn’t. Once I started getting a bunch of Instagram notifications, I realized Instagram will only show you about the last hundred of them. After that, you can’t see them. Taylor Swift has millions of notifications, so she probably would never even see if we’ve tagged her in something.
L: If I met Taylor Swift I would hug her! I want to ask her about playing the guitar and I want to talk to her about her cats!
S: She didn’t used to think too much about Taylor seeing the photos she takes, but this week she saw a video of her surprising a couple at their wedding and this put some seemingly impossible ideas in her head. She really wants to be her friend. Lilly asked to send Taylor a picture she drew for her. I told her we didn’t have her address and she said “That’s OK mom. I’ll just ask the mailman. He knows everyone’s address!”
BM: That is hysterical! Lilly, what do you like to do when not posing as Taylor Swift?
L: I like to play with marble works. I got it for my birthday from Darrah, Daisy and Richard (our friends). You get to build stuff and then watch the marbles go through it! I also love drawing. I love to draw cats! Because Taylor Swift loves cats! I like helping everyone. Like when someone falls down on the playground at school. I like to help homeless people because they don’t have a home and that makes me feel sad. I give them food like fruit and snacks when I see them and we are in the car driving. I wish I could give them a house. I like giving my parents concerts because they are sweet to me. I play my guitar. I make it up because I don’t know the real way to play it yet. And I write songs about things like my family and cats. I really want a pet cat!
BM: Who are Lilly’s favorite artists including and besides Taylor Swift?
S: Lilly loves music from Beauty and the Beast and she says she likes Katy Perry, but I am not convinced she actually knows who she is…
BM: So Sara, last we spoke, your film and production career were really picking up. What’s gone on since then?
S: For now, we have been focusing on one project at a time. Right now we are working a documentary about a remarkable woman who had a terrible accident falling from a horse and her journey to get back on that horse. It’s a very inspiring story. Right now we are submitting the film to festivals. We’ll see what happens.
BM: And, how about Andy? Has he been involved with filming and our with Lilly’s photoshoots?
S: Andy has been very involved with all of the Taylor Tuesday shoots. We take turns taking the photos and hand the camera back and forth, so we never really know whose photo is whose exactly.
BM: So…lastly, what makes Lilly BOLD?
L: My mom lets me pick out my own clothes for school. I only wear stuff that doesn’t match. I love when it doesn’t match because it just feels crazy and fun!
S: Lilly definitely marches to the beat of her own drum. When I said that out loud it first came out “she beats to the march of her own drum”, which perhaps is an even better way to describe my Lilly. She has some really big ideas and takes after me in that she talks non-stop!
GIL
THESE PICTURES OF MY NIECE LILYBELLE ARE ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS, CAN’T WAIT TO SEE HER!! AND LILYBELLE IS SO PRESCIOUS!!