Lady Gagas Best Born This Way Era Looks, Ranked by Creative Director Nicola Formichet

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Fashion designer and creative director Nicola Formichetti has worked with Lady Gaga for over a decade. From her famous meat dress to the Grammys’ vessel arrival, he and Gaga have collaborated to create some of her most iconic looks.

“Everything with Gaga always, especially in fashion, comes from the music. It’s always important that we embody what she wants to do with her music,” Formichetti tells Variety of their creative partnership.

One of their greatest collaborations was on the looks for Gaga’s trailblazing album, “Born This Way,” which celebrates its 10th anniversary today. “The album was all about empowerment. It was about freedom of expression and taking ownership of our rights,” Formichetti says.

He recalls the 2010 MTV Awards, when the singer showed up in that meat dress and sang a snippet from the titular track. “It was almost a prequel of what was to come,” he says.

For the “Born This Way” era, Formichetti and Gaga wanted to create an aesthetic that was fearless and powerful. “It was about taking power, dressing to the extreme, and showing it was real, but half-fantasy,” Formichetti says. “The album was about symbolism and iconography and taking ownership and changing the perspective of her.”

In honor of ten years of “Born This Way,” Formichetti breaks down his favorite creations from the era below, sharing his personal favorites and the stories behind the outfits.

  • 'Born This Way' Album Back Cover

    “Gaga had this concept in mind of creating a new race with was very much depicted in the music video. The album shoot and video were directed by Nick Knight. He created this otherworldly mixed with reality, and that was the starting point.

    “We were in Europe working on ‘The Fame Monster’ with makeup artist Val Garland and we had started talking about the new album. Gaga wanted to do a rebirth. We bleached her eyebrows and took her lashes away, and it was a very different look from ‘The Fame Monster’ era. We took away the girly things and it became punk-y.

    “She wanted strong graphic lines. Through that conversation, Val wanted to do an angular look to Gaga’s face inspired by Alexander McQueen. Over the months, we developed prosthetics for her face, making the cheeks pointy and her shoulders, almost like her body was changing. With materials, we wanted to work with leather and latex that represented Gaga’s DNA. That was how we started shaping the aesthetic.

    “This leather sculptural piece for Thierry Mugler was something I had designed when I started working for atelier. It was inspired by anatomy and taking it to the extreme. The boobs were pointy and the heel was elongated. We threw her hair in this punk rock way that set the tone for the whole era.”

  • Birthed From Goo

    “My personal favorite is this outfit that we created with this artist Bart Hess. It was an outfit created with textured goo. It was her covered in this otherworldly material. We would blow air in it so it had different silhouettes, textures and colors. As you can see from the music video, she comes out from this egg with goo, and you’re reborn into this new race with no judgment, no prejudice and no discrimination. This goo represented that birth.”

  • 2011 Grammy Awards Arrival – The Vessel

    “The first time we performed ‘Born This Way’ was very meaningful for all of us. We collaborated with British fashion designer and artist Hussein Chalayan to create the vessel for incubation purposes. We took her along the red carpet at the Grammys inside the vessel, and that was such a moment, but we kept her inside the egg and brought her on stage, and she was born, and she sang ‘Born This Way.’

    “I remember being backstage and she was still inside the egg and I had her phone. She had asked me to tweet. So I said, ‘Hey, this is Nicola. Gaga is in incubation and we are about to perform.’ It was really a moment.”

  • 'Born This Way' Performance at the Grammys

    “The outfit was all latex because, for her, latex is her second skin. It’s her DNA. She always wore latex from the beginning as Lady Gaga. Latex symbolized the early stage of rebirth. The color also was very important. We wanted to do something that was a little off, almost, very neutral and an unusual color — almost industrial-like. We did this blue makeup which was inspired by David Bowie, and the glam side. We mixed these weird colors with a glam touch on the makeup which lifted the whole look.”

  • 'Judas' Music Video

    “’Judas’ was another take on ‘Born This Way’ which had a little bit more of the rock DNA mixed with the religious, spiritual archetypes. We were mixing rock and Christianity. I love the blue leather outfit with fringes [on which] we worked with Alex Noble, this young designer. There was a hood with a bandana print inside.

    “My personal favorite is the last scene when she gets stoned by her people. We got the Christian Lacroix archive piece, which was this one big white, almost like a wedding gown, but we styled it with creepers. If you look closely, you can see creeper shoes that she is wearing.”

  • Gaga Goes to Paris Fashion Week

    “The year I joined Mugler, she was still touring the Monster Ball. She flew into Paris, and we did the Day of Mugler with her, and that was for me, personally, such a special moment.

    “We had the two catwalk outfits. She’s on the catwalk and smoking in this jumpsuit that is very similar to what the girls are wearing this year. We used latex again as a base. We used a hard material that fitted the body and looks like you’re wearing a stocking. We played on soft and hard, and hard and shiny. There was this white Alien Queen outfit at the end and that was very special. She loved the collection so much that she wanted to wear one of the outfits from the show at the after-party. So I gave her this leopard bodysuit, and we went out partying after the show.

    “It was one of the first time in years when musicians were used in the fashion context. Nowadays, it feels normal and it’s important to work with artists if you have a brand, but ten years ago, it wasn’t the norm. I had trouble getting clothes from fashion brands. You could count the artists: Madonna, Bjork, Cher and Tina Turner. It was a completely different industry. Music and fashion are completely merged now.

    “I livestreamed the entire backstage because I wanted to open fashion up to everyone. Back then, fashion was so hush-hush. Some people said they had a better view of the show through the livestream because of all the cameras that had been set up to capture the angles.”

  • Zombie Twins From 'Born This Way' Music Video

    “We can’t leave out the ‘Born This Way’ video. My personal favorite was with Rico the Zombie Boy (Rick Genest). They were both in tuxedos that I had designed and made them into twins. We had this giant pink ponytail, and it was so special.

    “Rico’s look was a classic gentleman’s tuxedo and with Gaga, we mimicked her prosthetic shoulders and elongated it. We put men’s pants on her so it looked androgynous. I remember that Halloween, every look was from ‘Born This Way.’ We did a lot of extreme looks and the underwear was almost bare, like stripper underwear. It was sexy and represented birth again, the very beginning, as a dancer. There was a moment at the end [of the video] with a horse and Gaga outside, but that didn’t make it. Maybe one day it will make it in.”

  • The Introduction of Jo Calderone

    “We traveled to Nebraska. We shot it on a cornfield. That opening look was this Frankenstein-humanoid robot traveling through a field. We went for a destroyed rockstar look. It was the ‘70s mixed with couture. We put a Mugler hat upside down with giant sunglasses with this deconstructed tuxedo — a blazer with pants — and we added tulle inside her hair, but then we added robotic arms and prosthetics to make it look very much worn.

    “It was the introduction of Jo Calderone. We introduced Jo Calderone in Vogue Hommes Japan, which I created with Nick Knight. We didn’t say it was Gaga. It was Jo, and I put that on the cover, but people knew. The ‘You and I’ video was simple. He’s a rocker with this musician vibe. He had this dirty white t-shirt. That white t-shirt was from Uniqlo, and we love a Uniqlo moment.”

  • 'The Edge of Glory' Music Video and the CFDA Awards

    “She had this Versace number. The video was all about her being in New York, the subculture and her becoming a pop star. So, we went ‘90s archive Versace covered in gold stars.

    “At the CFDA Award Show, I designed that outfit for Mugler. Back then, we didn’t have Zoom, and I was working with my team in Paris, and somewhere along the way, we mixed up the colors and when the outfit arrived on the day, it was a completely different color than we thought. We thought, ‘Fuck!’ And with Gaga, as happens all the time, we said, ‘Let’s just get some spray paint, studs, cover the whole thing in black and put some tulle on and go.’

    “That outfit was originally blue, it matched the hair, but we wanted to go this opposite way. I remember us spraying it and adding the studs on the day of the event. The teal hair was incredible. She looked very glamorous, sexy and cool.”

  • Gaga's Workshop for the Holidays at Barneys

    “Barneys, the department store, asked us to create a holiday pop-up. We did this fantastical and fun, inclusive, community-based event. The outfit she wore was designed by Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel. It was completely Gaga-fied. She looked like a princess in the classic Chanel, timeless jacket. And Karl made it beautiful.

    “Throughout ‘Born This Way,’ because of her message in music and being an ally for the LGBTQ community, embodying female empowerment, she wanted to create something for her fans. It was the first time we had done that, and for Gaga it was very important to create something for them physically as well as creating any kind of safe space for her fans to be themselves.

    “She already does that through her music with this great message, but this was the first time they could come and be safe. We took over the window displays. One was made up of hair, and there was another one where fans could tweet her, and those tweets would show in the window. She made fans feel a part of her world. For me, it was the start of her fandom and she started this celebrity and fandom, where she named them ‘Little Monsters’ and it was beautiful to see in person.”

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