FASHION Magazine

It’s hard to believe that it’s only been five years since Lady Gaga released her first album, The Fame. The sheer number of images, hits and sound bites the 27-year-old has ushered into popular culture is uncanny. The New York native’s wardrobe choices have inspired lookalike fans and popularized collections from such designers as Jean Paul Gaultier and Hussein Chalayan. Her first fragrance, Fame, launched in 2012, sold six million bottles during its first week. University courses have analyzed her socio-political significance. She’s the only chart-topper to have used the word “transgendered” in a Billboard number one hit (2011’s “Born This Way”), and her 40 million-plus Twitter followers and 60 million Facebook fans have witnessed her fight for equal rights for women and the LGBT community. Last year, Time Magazine’s readers named her the second most influential person of the decade (beating out U.S. President Barack Obama). Unlike so many in her line of work, Gaga’s affection for fashion is not a flirtation.

Whether donning legendary labels, new technologies or message-based garments, the woman formerly known as Stefani Germanotta is a living, breathing canvas. Which is probably why Donatella Versace chose Gaga as the new face of her label. Before her upcoming world tour, Gaga sat down with FASHION‘s features editor Elio Iannacci to talk about her latest obsessions and her current album, Artpop. Here is a sneak peak of the exclusive interview in FASHION Magazine—which will hit newsstands on January 13, 2014.

See the Diesel Tribute Capsule collection »

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Diesel Tribute Capsule Collection

Diesel Tribute Capsule Collection

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Diesel Reboot Flash T-Shirt

Diesel Reboot Flash T-Shirt

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Diesel Tribute Capsule Collection

Diesel Tribute Capsule Collection

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Diesel Tribute Capsule Collection

Diesel Tribute Capsule Collection

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Diesel Tribute Capsule Collection

Diesel Tribute Capsule Collection

When I arrive at Nicola Formichetti’s New York studio, located on a quiet street in the no man’s land between Tribeca and Chinatown, I’m greeted by a chaotic production scene and a whole lot of very stylish, very busy-looking Chinese people. Photographers are zigzagging around the space, women with clipboards are running after them, everyone’s iPhones are out and ablaze. Apparently, Chinese pop star Momo Wu (and her extensive entourage) is here filming a segment with Formichetti, whom I spot patiently posing for pictures while being shouted at in Mandarin. I’m quickly ushered into the metallic calm of a waiting elevator and whisked up to the designer’s fourth-floor loft.

When the elevator doors open, I find myself face to face with a different kind of frenzy. Compared to the clean-lined studio downstairs, which calls to mind a Tokyo gallery with its minimal decor and silver sculptures on display, Formichetti’s private space is an unexpected explosion of youthful exuberance and unadulterated kawaii. Seeing this wonderland of tropical plants, fuzzy shag rugs and colourful plush toys, I can’t help but smile, despite the sensory overload. I don’t know what I expected of the radical former Mugler designer’s New York pad (a sinister-looking crown on the mantel perhaps? A lace and latex settee?), but a rainbow-coloured cartoon fantasy was not it.

When Formichetti appears a few minutes later, he is equal parts bemused and bewildered. “It’s crazy down there!” he proclaims. “Did you see all those people? I must have had 10 cameras facing me!” Momo Wu has come to woo him, he explains as he collapses onto a pink and purple sofa upholstered in a whimsical Japanese fruit and flower print. He settles in between a stuffed Tarepanda doll and a Rilakkuma pillow. “She wants to work with me,” he shrugs. “Apparently, she’s
the Lady Gaga of China.”

Formichetti may be best known as the former stylist (and still bestie) of Lady Gaga, but these days he’s got more on his mind than meat gowns, feather headdresses and bubble-machine minis. As fashion director at Uniqlo and recently appointed artistic director at Diesel, it seems the boundary-pushing designer is going back to basics. “I’m very interested in the fantasy side of fashion, but at the same time I’ve always been into street culture,” he says. “Diesel is in between »

See the Versace ad campaigns » After months of Lady Gaga pulling from the Versace archives, the first ad starring the singer as the label’s face was released earlier this week causing Donatella double takes across the globe. Mother Monster’s transformative skills are in high gear for the photos, in which she dons the designer’s […]

The post Doing the Donatella: 10 stars from Gaga to Madonna who have morphed into the designer for Versace ad campaigns appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

See the AMAs 2013 red carpet looks »

The biggest stars in music took over Los Angeles last night for the annual American Music Awards. From Miley Cyrus’s tongue-wagging kitty to Lady Gaga’s red carpet arrival on a white two-manned faux horse, the show was nothing short of spectacular.

On the red carpet, Miley Cyrus (sans bleached eyebrows) was surprisingly modest in a white Versus white pantsuit with black Saint Laurent pumps. Once inside though, it didn’t take long for the singer to return to her signature rebellious ways when she rocked a cat print crop top and high-waisted bikini bottom by Brit designer Markus Lupfer during her performance. In other attention grabbing sartorial choices, Lady Gaga, the newly appointed face of Versace, wore a lavender dress from the brand’s Spring 2014 collection. In eerily brilliant branding, she appeared the doppelganger of Donatella herself.

On Lorde‘s current hit, “Royals,” the 16-year-old singer-songwriter wryly implores listeners to “call her Queen Bee” so she can rule a music scene that she clearly feels needs a new sovereign. Her buzzy debut disc, Pure Heroine, serves as both scepter and crown jewel to her fantasy reign, boasting sparse, electro-basted pop tracks that bring to mind early-Björk and late-Postal Service. In the thick of her North American tour—which includes an upcoming stop in Toronto—the New Zealand-born talent took time out to chat about her pointed lyrics, her thoughts on Will, Kate and Pippa and FASHION‘s provocative cover girl, Miley Cyrus.

See the MTV VMAs 2013 red carpet photos »

Ah, the MTV VMAs! If there’s one award show that calls for stars to go all out in clever costumery, it’s the VMAs. This is, after all, the event that Gwen Stefani wore a blue fun fur bikini to and where Lil’ Kim made pasties a trending topic before Twitter even existed. Basically, the rule is that you have to become a spectacle at the VMAs if you want to stand out.

Rising to the top of the VMAs 2013 best dressed challenge was, of course, Miley Cyrus. Just a day earlier she had released the ’90s-worthy cover art for her next album, Bangerz, which will certainly be the final step in the campaign to completely forget her Disney upbringing. On the VMA red carpet, Miley opted to keep it skin-tight in a crop top and leggings courtesy Dolce & Gabbana. The bejewelled pieces were vintage and had a slight Carmen Miranda vibe—though any ladylike pretensions were washed away with Miley’s playful (and persistent) tongue wagging. Of course, her red carpet outfit has nothing on what was worn during the actual show. Fun fur forever!

See all of Lady Gaga’s looks »

Lady Gaga may have been laying low for the past two years, but don’t let her down time fool you. The popstar’s wisely planned comeback is in full swing and boy is she dressing the part. In a mere 24 hours, Gaga’s released a new video for her song “Applause,” landed a spot on iTunes’ Top 10 chart and made television and radio appearances- all in killer high fashion looks (were most excited about the latter).

Gone are the days when celebrities and designers were just, well, celebrities and designers. Now with every celebrity endorsement comes with a prestigious title—one that we’re used to being associated with helming a major fashion house—the creative director.

While we can’t be too certain what part of the process these celebrity endorsements play other than lending their face or fame to the product, it has become increasingly common for musicians, actors, and designers to add a creative director title to their CVs (aka their Wikipedia pages). With the recent news of Alicia Keys becoming the Global Creative Director of Blackberry, and today’s announcement of Marc Jacobs as the newest creative director of Diet Coke—succeeding Jean Paul Gaultier—we’ve decided to take a look back at some of the weirdest and flat out funniest creative directors to date.

See our list of top 10 strange celebrity creative directors »

See our all-black makeup picks! »

It is always darkest before the dawn, so the proverb goes. By our calculations, the sun should be rising on planet fashion any day now: the Fall 2012 runways plunged us into a cavernous black hole of clothes worthy of Louise Brooks and Siouxsie Sioux, and haunting beauty looks that referenced Tim Burton’s films. That mood also infected the making of Lady Gaga’s fragrance, Fame. “I like black, especially what it has to do with fame, because it is a veil,” she says, tapping her knife-like ebony talons on the table at a hotel in New York. “It’s sort of like saying, ‘I don’t want you to see something.’” The R&D department struggled to create the noir-hued perfume that turns clear once airborne—an industry first. (Rumour has it one staff member was inspired when he spotted a bottle of black vodka behind the bar while out for a drink.) The request for an ominously coloured juice was music to the ears of its perfumer, Richard Herpin. It meant he didn’t have to exclude ingredients that can be visually unappealing when mixed together. “I could use anything I wanted,” he says. As fashion has taught us, black hides a multitude of sins.

Do you think Lady Gaga would make a good love interest? There is a walk-off for who gets to star alongside Derek Zoolander and Hansel McDonald in the sequel to Zoolander. At the top of the wish list is Lady Gaga, who has reportedly been offered $5 million to play the love interest of Ben […]

The post Could Lady Gaga be Derek Zoolander’s new lady love? appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

Despite disappointment that The Great Gatsby’s original Christmas 2012 premiere date was pushed back to May 2013, the delay does mean there’s more time for exciting Gatsby rumours to unfold. Today’s edition: Lady Gaga may be recording a song for the film’s soundtrack.

According to British Vogue, actress Adelaide Clemens—who plays Myrtle’s sister in the film—spilled the beans earlier this week and also hinted that Prince may be contributing to the soundtrack. While nothing has been confirmed by Lady Gaga or the the producers of the film, we started thinking of how she could rework some of her existing songs for the film:

Lady Gaga is no stranger to wearing designer wears, and it looks as though she couldn’t even wait a week to try on some of Hedi Slimane’s debut creations for Saint Laurent Paris.

The designer showed his much talked about Spring 2013 collection last Monday during Paris Fashion Week, and although it’s received much flak in the industry, Lady Gaga seems to be on Team Hedi, as the first to have worn pieces from his collection literally straight off the runway.