Lady Gaga's Most Over-The-Top Outfits Of All Time

There are a million reasons to adore Lady Gaga, but sitting high on that list is her flagrant embrace of a radically inventive style. Provocative, uncompromising, and often subversive — her looks have been defying convention from the moment she burst onto the scene with "Just Dance" in 2008. Since then, Gaga has consistently indulged fans with clothes that function as a reflection of her artistic ethos: "I make all sorts of wild decisions and that's just part of who I am" she told SiriusXM.

"I'm an artist and I'm enjoying expressing my music through my clothes," she noted – a sentiment that has defined her career as much as her music itself. Each chapter of her oeuvre has introduced a new visual identity: There's the glitzy futurism of "The Fame," the gothic glam of "The Fame Monster," the baroque surrealism of "Artpop," the western minimalism of "Joanne," and the cyberpunk fantasia of "Chromatica." Gaga's turn as Harley Quinn in "Joker: Folie a Deux" brought out some of her most daring fashion to date. Whittling down her most outrageous outfits is nigh-on impossible, but a select few have undeniably stood out, and gone down in history.

At the crux of camp is artifice and exaggeration. So says Susan Sontag, whose essay "Notes on Camp" served as the inspiration for the 2019 Met Gala. When Anna Wintour unveiled the theme, it seemed like she had one muse in mind: Lady Gaga. Longtime stylist Brandon Maxwell first draped her in a sweeping fuschia cape. She shed it to reveal an angular black gown, then a sleek hot pink sheath, and finally a bedazzled black bra and fishnets. Her oversized 1980s phone, metallic tendrils as lashes, and platinum bob felt like an homage to early Gaga, reimagined for her since elevated icon status. As Gaga later revealed to Vogue, she asked Wintour for 20 minutes on the red carpet – a fitting indulgence for her hyperbolic, florid foray into what she christened "Pop Burlesque." According to GQ, when pressed on how anyone might rival Gaga's boundary-pushing pomp, Wintour reportedly said with a poker face, "Just go home."

The year was 2014. The Lady Gaga era in question was "Artpop." "The intention of the album," she explained, "was to put art culture into pop music, a reverse of Warhol" (via YouTube). It was during this period that Gaga enlisted the talents of Jack Irving — a rising star in fashion and known for his constructivist, extraterrestrial-inspired style -– to design a show-stopping finale look for her artRAVE in Paris. He was the perfect choice for an era marked by its fusion of modern art and pop spectacle. This ensemble was crafted from Mylar and equipped with a ventilation system. At first glance, it appeared as a mere shimmering holographic cape. But once she activated the built-in inflator, the cape ballooned to reveal a constellation of towering, sharp-edged spikes. Category is: futuristic sea urchin.

Lady Gaga's fire bra sparked quite the reaction when she sported it to perform at the 2009 Much Music Video Awards in Toronto. Built by her prop house, Tom Talmon Studio, the bra was a triumph of engineering. The electrifying display was powered by a remote in her hand, activating a mechanism where rapidly spinning steel struck a lint-like material to produce a torrent of incendiary fizz.

Even offstage, bra refused to go unnoticed. Her stylist, Nicola Formichetti, told The Globe and Mail he was stopped by security at the airport with it, as his suitcase of tangled wires and steel suggesting something far more sinister. He laughed: "I thought they were going to put me in prison when, by chance, a guy walked past and said, 'Oh my god, that's Gaga's bra from last night!'" No pyro, no party, indeed.

Lady Gaga chanelled Studio 54-era Bianca Jagger for her entrance to the 2013 American Music Awards, descending onto the red carpet like a deity astride none other than a white horse. But Gaga's horse was no ordinary steed, as she joked to Vogue, "My purse this evening was a mechanical horse." Unlike Jagger's, hers was animated by two humans hidden within its frame, which was cleverly constructed from Chanel purses.

Her lavender gown billowed as though caught in the breath of an Elysian breeze. This was a creation by Donatella Versace herself, who had recently crowned Gaga as the face of her fashion house. So deep is Gaga's admiration for the designer, she immortalized her in a song, aptly titled "Donatella."

Of course, no mention of Gaga's most over-the-top outfits of all time could leave out her meat dress, worn at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards. To this day, it stands as one of her most controversial and unforgettable statements. Designed by Franc Fernandez and executed by her creative team, Haus of Gaga, the dress represents her sartorial gall perfectly. It also pointed to a sharp political critique; at a time when the US military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy suppressed LGBTQ+ identities, Gaga hoped to allude to these prejudiced injustices.

Animal rights activists lambasted her for the outfit and many onlookers blenched in disgust. But she defended her choice on the Ellen Show: "If we don't stand up for what we believe in, if we don't fight for our rights, pretty soon we're going to have as much rights as the meat on our bones."