Lady Gaga's 10 Best 'Born This Way' Era Outfits, A Decade Later
The extensive promotional tour for Gaga's third album meant daily reinventions, ones that allowed her to play with fashion, style, and concepts in a way she had never done before.
Welcome to Born This Way weekend at Top Shelf, Low Brow! In honor of the 10th anniversary of Lady Gaga’s career-defining magnum opus, I’m taking a look back at the era’s music, fashion, and promotion to celebrate its indelible impact on pop culture a decade later.
To start, we’re looking back at 10 of the best, most iconic, glamorous, rebellious, and purely Gaga outfits from the album’s rollout. With an era that was as groundbreaking as it was extensive — Born This Way’s promotional tour lasted well over a year, from the moment she first announced the album’s title at the VMAs in September 2010 to the last performance of “Marry The Night,” the album’s fifth and final single, in December 2011 — every promo stop was a new opportunity to serve rebellious haute couture at a level that not even Gaga herself had reached yet, teal wigs and facial prosthetics abound!
For this list, I’m focusing specifically on looks from the album’s promo era, meaning mostly street style, red carpets, an occasional photoshoot, and talk show appearances from before, during, and after the album’s launch. Each one of Born This Way’s five music videos has a unique set of memorable looks that would be impossible not to mention here, so we’re keeping it specifically to the day-to-day outfits Gaga was sporting during the album’s long and exhaustive release cycle. That also means that the Born This Way Ball tour costumes, while spectacular, aren’t eligible.
From alien prosthetics and rebel punk black leather to bright teal wigs followed by muted pastels, Gaga’s looks during the Born This Way era reflected the bold and immediate, genre-defying soundscape of the album’s core. Gaga’s mission to uplift and celebrate youth and creativity across each of the deluxe album’s 17 tracks meant an augmented dedication to promoting young, emerging designers and incorporating their pieces into highly realized outfits from established couturiers. Each day was a new look, sometimes part of a greater theme and sometimes out of left field altogether, but everything was always entirely Gaga.
10. Gaga goes mint on The Jonathan Ross Show
After a summer of wearing bold primary colors, mesh cutouts, and atelier Versace to promote Born This Way, Gaga graduated to lighter hues and cool pastels on her trip to London in October of 2011. Appearing on The Jonathan Ross Show, Gaga emerged from backstage in a latex Atsuko Kudo jacket, skirt, and gloves, mint Natacha Marro heelless platforms, and custom Philip Treacy headpiece — all in the same shade of mint green as her wig. As if that wasn’t enough, she made sure the set was decked out in hay bales as a reference to the Nebraska farm setting from her “Yoü and I” video and walked out with an additional accessory: a ram, whom she called Kevin. Kevin’s leash? Custom-made by Atsuko Kudo to keep with the color story.
9. Gaga giving rich holiday reds for Annie Leibovitz
While shooting the cover for Vanity Fair’s January 2012 issue with Annie Leibovitz in September of 2011, Gaga looked ahead at the deep reds she’d be sporting months later during the holidays, when the issue would be hitting newsstands while she was promoting “Marry The Night” as the album’s final single. After spending the day shooting with Leibovitz, Gaga sported an Alexandre Vauthier high-neck red dress, custom a-morir sunglasses, and red leather Noritaka Tatehana heelless platform boots, a Born This Way era staple. A touch of sweet elegance on the tail end of a gritty, punk-filled era.
8. Head-to-Toe Houndstooth on The View
While stopping by The View for a one-day stint as a guest cohost, Gaga wore head-to-toe houndstooth print to profess her love of Whoopi Goldberg and tell a story about the time she stole a photo of Goldberg from a hotel lobby before being tracked down by security. Gaga’s dress, clutch, and heels were from Salvatore Ferragamo’s F/W 2011 collection, and matching sunglasses and hat were done by Perry Meek. Never one to not go the extra mile, Gaga’s makeup team gave her houndstooth pattern marks on her face and legs, plus Gaga “was up all night” covering the back of her notecards with a houndstooth pattern as well.
7. A Hairy Situation in Europe — and I’m not talking about Brexit!
At The Paul O’Grady Show in June 2011, Gaga continued her string of high-concept European promo performances with a rendition of “Hair” on a piano covered in wigs wearing a bald cap and a Charlie le Mindu hair dress. A few weeks later, Gaga performed “Hair” on the French music show Taratata wearing vintage Versace and with a wig teal wig tied to a miniature Eiffel Tower. Technically, this counts as two looks, but you have to forgive me, I’m a Gaga stan doing my best to narrow down hundreds of legendary looks here! Because “Hair” was only a promotional single, it could be stripped down and performed at the piano with no choreography, allowing viewers to focus on precise fashion statements that generated a deeper visual insight into the song’s meaning.
6. A Gothic Wedding on Graham Norton
In the days leading up to the release of Born This Way, Gaga was on multiple planes and in multiple outfits every day to promote the album. On her first appearance on the UK’s beloved Graham Norton Show, Gaga wore a gothic look that perfectly encapsulated some of the album’s themes of love, marriage, and religion. Aside from a Gaultier bra and some fishnets, Gaga’s look was created by Irish designer Sorcha O’Raghallaigh, who elaborated on the outfit to La Maison Gaga, saying, “[Her headpiece is] a crown made of gold spikes with flower and shredded fabric details, and crystal crucifix with veil draping from the top of the cross. The medieval-style dress [is] made of gold chiffon and a mixture of gold lace, with flower and shredded chiffon details on the sleeve.” Additional features include “a studded choker with gems, crystals, bead-encrusted heart and cross pendants, gold metal spike rays around the circumference of the heart, and multicolored rectangular crystals from the choker studded neck to the heart and crucifix pieces.” It’s a look that, to me, always felt decidedly like a wedding dress, with Gaga marrying herself to her art as the release of her magnum opus drew closer.
5. My Last Two Braincells Doing Promo in Asia
While appearing on the Janapese talk show Tetsuko no Heya, or “Tetsuko’s Room,” Gaga chose a couture piece from Tokyo-based designer Saphir East, paired with a bleach blonde beehive. A few days later, now in Singapore, Gaga chose a similar look and silhouette with a dress by Becky Short and a stunning teal beehive. At both appearances, Gaga wore her signature Noritaka Tatehana heelless platform boots. They may not be outfits from promo stops that were particularly major or memorable for Western audiences, but the teal beehive and the Saphir East dress are both burned into my brain as classic looks from this era.
4. Every. Body. Prosthetic.
Okay, fine, you caught me. This is technically a “beauty” look paired with several different outfits for appearances and photoshoots over many months, but it’s so fucking iconic that it simply can’t not have its own place on the list. Gaga’s face and shoulder prosthetics, which she called her “bones,” were latex created by Neill Gorton and molded onto her body. In her cover story for the Harper’s Bazaar May 2011 issue, Gaga told Derek Blasberg: “They're not prosthetics. They're my bones. They've always been inside of me, but I have been waiting for the right time to reveal to the universe who I truly am…we all have these bones! They're the light from inside of us.”
The bones have become synonymous with Born This Way’s visual aesthetic, completely inseparable from the era. They made their first appearance on the album’s promotional poster, splayed out in major cities across America. They then made their way to appearances at The Grammys, The Tonight Show, Good Morning America, and The Gayle King Show, where the facial prostheses prominently protruded alongside blunt shoulder bones. The bones are just one of the many unforgettable things about Gaga’s Born This Way era style, she was willing to lose sleep and sit in the makeup chair for hours on end just to have a visual aesthetic that coincided with her vision for the music. That’s what Born This Way is all about: being fiercely yourself at all costs, even if it may look strange to others.
3. What becomes a legend most? Slime.
For Born This Way, both the album and its titular lead single, Gaga ruminated on themes of birth, identity, autonomy, and motherhood. To channel those themes into a physical, couture reality, she tapped Dutch designer Bart Hess, who works with organic materials to create stunning visual aesthetics that are as fantastical as they are fragile. With core reference words from Gaga such as “alien” and “birth,” Hess “began researching slime” and worked with both handmade and storebought materials until he achieved a texture and color that matched Gaga’s inspiration and could be applied to the album’s visuals.
Hess’ “slime dress” was made of 15 pounds of organic slime that were draped across Gaga and photographed by Nick Knight for the album booklet. The results are some of the most captivating and iconic photos not just from the Born This Way era, but from Gaga’s entire career. The slime “only [stayed] in existence for a fraction of a second,” but will live in grotesquely gorgeous infamy.
2. The Rivington Rebel
It may be simple, but this look is the encapsulation of everything Born This Way. It is grunge and punk, clean but dirty, DIY yet couture, and wholly Gaga. Worn during the filming of her HBO Monster Ball concert documentary special, Gaga chose this look to be the transition between the era that officially catapulted her to stardom and the one that would make her an icon. Leather, studs, spikes, a custom jacket designed by Tom Tom Fashions, a-morir gloves, Chanel shades, and, of course, the Noritaka Tatehana heelless boots. This is Born This Way in one perfect look.
1. The Runway Walk that Changed Paris
I gave it so much thought and consideration. Are there other looks that maybe spoke to the ideas surrounding Born This Way’s lyrics and sound more? Yes. Are there other outfits that are more complex, more visually sumptuous, more outlandishly Gaga? Possibly. Is there anything else I think of first when I think Born This Way era fashion? Not at all. This is it, the Mugler Fall/Winter 2011 womenswear show.
Tapped by her friend and stylist Nicola Formichetti to walk in his first womenswear show at Mugler in 2011, Gaga knew she had to make it legendary, meaning she had to fuck. it. up. on that runway. On a stage beset my columns and shrouded in shadow, Gaga lurked behind models as they swerved between tall pillars in Mugler couture, before emerging bathed in red light and sporting two long, blonde pigtails. As the models continued to strut the catwalk around her, Gaga posed and served, taking hands-free puffs of a cigarette while the dark gothic synths of the much-anticipated album cut, “Government Hooker,” bumped through the speakers, debuting itself for the first time. Finally, after her presence had kept everyone in awe long enough, Gaga stomped the catwalk herself, bearing her teeth and putting her hands in a monster claw before walking off, only to return for the finale, swishing the fabric of a white gown and taking her final bows.
This is not merely a memorable Born This Way-era fashion moment, it’s a legendary pop star event — one that I’m not sure any other pop girl could pull off with such palpable attitude. Just watching it feels empowering, the same way hearing a few bars of any of the songs from Born This Way instantly inspires a fierce personal freedom. This was Gaga: the fashion icon, the pop superstar, and the ferocious trailblazer taking what’s hers; she owned herself and the world all at once, and no one could take that away from her.
Well, have I angered you? Are you upset with me? What did I miss? Have I made a disastrous mistake, overlooking something so iconic and legendary and memorable that you simply must fight for justice in the name of your fellow Bad Kids? Let me know and maybe I’ll make an addendum or two! And stay tuned for letter number two, the second part of Born This Way weekend! Happy almost 10 year anniversary. Let the cultural baptism begin!