Lady Gaga - the purest modern burlesque star?

It’s a given that many a modern star has roots in burlesque: Christine Aguilera, Dita Von Teese and Courtney love to name but three. Perhaps the most famous, though is Lady Gaga whose amazing costumes are largely corset based. In fact, she’s the only performer we know who has worn not one, but two corsets! Her first outfit for American Horror Story: Hotel, weighed around 20 kilos and required the support of two corsets. When you’re talking about bespoke burlesque costumes, Gaga takes the proverbial biscuit.

And Lady Gaga has never been reticent about how she learned her showmanship - starting work in strip clubs when she was eighteen after she moved out of home and insisted on supporting herself through waitressing, and when she was short of money, stripping. Her immense body confidence has never been in doubt and nor has her wild costuming. Even when she had no money, she opted for black leather and danced to Guns N’Roses. We’re certain she’d adore our Napaleather corset!

In fact she says that dancing was her major income source and her explicit and sometimes controversial videos draw upon the time when she was ‘onstage in a thong, with a fringe hanging over my ass… lighting hairsprays on fire, go-go dancing to Black Sabbath and singing songs about oral sex.’ Okay then, we can see that she’s never been shy.

Lady Gaga Dive Tour

So strong is the role of burlesque in her life that with the release of her latest album, Joanne, she’s given three tiny, intimate and gritty shows that hark back to the small stage, up-close performances she gave to earn enough money to pay her rent. That’s a far cry from her Super Bowl performance but it’s an homage to the role of burlesque that shows she’s unashamed of her background and values what she calls ‘raw Americana’ - a blend of country, pop, funk and more. It’s been an intensely personal launch of an album that commemorates an aunt who died at the age of 19.

Burlesque has always been about stripping, both stripping the body naked but also exposing the raw emotions that society would rather have us hide. Lady Gaga’s gothic language and transgressive imagery is a way to connect her audience to its own hidden darkness.

Burlesque costumes for the modern age

Above all, Lady Gaga is declarative - her costumes speak before she opens her mouth, so from the famous meat dress through to the elegance of her woman warrior gowns, to which we pay our own homage with the Warrior Steampunkcorset, she invites us to respond, pushing buttons for us all so that we can invest in where the song is going to take us. It’s not always a comfortable experience, but that’s exactly what burlesque is all about - the challenge of facing ourselves and taking pleasure in the discoveries we make.