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Lady Gaga meat dress: The outfit that shocked the world

Clare Thorp
Features correspondent
Getty Images Lady Gaga managed to upstage even Cher when she wore the 'meat dress' (Credit: Getty Images)Getty Images
Lady Gaga managed to upstage even Cher when she wore the 'meat dress' (Credit: Getty Images)

When Lady Gaga appeared at the 2010 MTV VMAs clad in flank steak, she managed to outdo even herself. Clare Thorp talks to the woman who inspired the look, with an earlier outfit of bacon boots and chipolata hairpieces.

It takes some effort to upstage Cher at an awards show. This is the woman whose Oscar outfits alone have included towering feather headpieces, sequinned bralettes, floral bikinis and nearly naked dresses. But when the singer – wearing a sheer, sequinned bodystocking – presented the award for best video at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards, even she looked a little taken aback as Lady Gaga took to the stage wearing a dress made entirely of cuts of meat.

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Slashed to the thigh, and featuring a cowl neck, the dress came with matching beefy boots, hat and meat clutch. "I never thought I'd be asking Cher to hold my meat purse," said Gaga as she picked up her award for the Bad Romance video – perhaps unaware that Cher doesn't eat meat.

Getty Images Lady Gaga managed to upstage even Cher when she wore the 'meat dress' (Credit: Getty Images)Getty Images
Lady Gaga managed to upstage even Cher when she wore the 'meat dress' (Credit: Getty Images)

It was one of three outfits Gaga wore that night. She'd already walked the red carpet wearing a custom-made Alexander McQueen gown with a Renaissance-inspired print, 12in Armadillo shoes and a gold feather headpiece. She collected her best pop video award wearing a voluminous black leather Armani dress. However, her meat dress was not only the most memorable outfit of that evening, but arguably of her entire career – some feat when you consider this is the woman who arrived at the 2011 Grammys in an egg.

Alamy Lady Gaga said that she'd spent three days inside the egg-shaped 'vessel' designed by Hussein Chalayan before climbing out of it (Credit: Alamy)Alamy
Lady Gaga said that she'd spent three days inside the egg-shaped 'vessel' designed by Hussein Chalayan before climbing out of it (Credit: Alamy)

By the time she appeared at that year's VMAs – where she was nominated for 13 awards – people were well used to Gaga's outrageous outfits.  The year before she'd taken to the stage to perform soaked in blood. She'd met the Queen while wearing a red latex ballgown and appeared on a German TV show in a coat made entirely from Kermit the Frogs. But she was about to up the ante.

Getty Images When meeting Queen Elizabeth II at the annual Royal Variety Performance in 2009, Lady Gaga donned a floor-length red latex Atsuko Kudo dress (Credit: Getty Images)Getty Images
When meeting Queen Elizabeth II at the annual Royal Variety Performance in 2009, Lady Gaga donned a floor-length red latex Atsuko Kudo dress (Credit: Getty Images)

The idea was originally sparked by a conversation Gaga had with make-up artist Val Garland, who had worn her own version of a meat dress back in the 1980s. "Before I was a make-up artist, I was a hairdresser, and I used to live in Australia," Garland tells BBC Culture. "The clubs in Australia then were amazing. It was all about being individual, pushing the boundaries and getting noticed. I was going to this daytime party and I thought, what can I wear that nobody's ever seen before">window._taboola = window._taboola || []; _taboola.push({ mode: 'alternating-thumbnails-a', container: 'taboola-below-article', placement: 'Below Article', target_type: 'mix' });