Lady Gaga transforms into living ‘couture doll’ for magazine cover

It's the 25th time the singer has graced V Magazine's cover

(V Magazine/Jean-Paul Goude)

If anyone is known for pulling off avant-garde outfits, it’s Lady Gaga.

Though the singer-turned-Oscar nominated actor has sported a more refined aesthetic in recent years, few can forget the infamous meat dress she wore to the MTV VMA awards in 2010 that cemented her status as one of the most experimental creatives in the industry, sartorially speaking.

Now, in honour of a decade-long association with V Magazine, Gaga fronts the publication’s March issue dressed as a “living doll”, marking her 25th V cover.

In the cover image, the 32-year-old appears in showgirl-like garb, sporting a strapless black gown by Armani Prive with a feathered pink robe and an elaborate headdress.

“We tried to turn Gaga into a living doll, a living icon, like the figurines that people collect and put on their mantelpiece, but life size,” explains photographer Jean-Paul Goude, who shot the cover.

In a second photograph, Gaga appears to be on a film set preparing for battle, clad in a strapless gunmetal gown with a billowing train while holding a red lightsaber.

In an online article, V reveals how its editor, Stephen Gan, first met Gaga in the East Village in New York City in 2009 and instantly wanted to collaborate with her.

The meeting "launched a 10-year expedition", the article states, "wading through a world of beautiful creative chaos - the combination of Gan and Gaga, whose love of the fashion canon was matched only by their desire to revolutionize it—culminating in this very moment."

Gaga fronted several covers for the publication following that initial meeting, and was asked to be a guest editor of its 99th edition in 2016, for which she helped produce 16 different covers.

“For ten years, Gaga’s artistry has been an adaptive, widely applicable remedy, from critically acclaimed acting on the big screen, to her Enigma residency in Vegas, which would inspire the cosmic, futuristic couture queen seen now on our cover,” V's article continues.

“Not bad for someone who, in her very first V interview professed a simple dream ‘of wanting to make something of [myself]’.”

V118 hits newsstands worldwide on 7 March.