Wednesday, March 24, 2010

How "unique" is Lady Gaga?

Here comes the love/hate relationship I have with Gaga, again. She's always on the spotlight and this time she is on it because of her new video Telephone featuring Beyoncé. We all have seen the video and I think it's good or fun, I haven't decided yet. I love the fact that she's wearing Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, plus Viktor & Rolf.

But here we go again, causing controversy is not everything you gotta do to sell. She is good playing piano and also her voice is not that sucky. But what bothers me the most is the fact that everyone's calling her "unique" and "original" when she's not. She and her Haus of Gaga have been "creating" things without authorization from the designer, copying things that in some cases are extremely obvious. She says it's a homage to the designer work, but I think that's plagiarism!

This is a continuos discussion with most of the people I talk, most of them agreed on how copying one thing from a famous designer is a tribute to his work, but in my opinion is NOT flattering at all. I would hate to see someone copying one of my designs and besides that, trying to steal all the credit and that's what Gaga do sometimes. The most annoying example is when she was promoting Poker Face and she's wearing a bubble dress and she never said who made it. For those who love Hussein Chalayan, we noticed inmediately that it was a knock off. And she's being doing this all the time.

I think that what makes a designer or a brand special is the fact that he or it proposes something new, something that we have never seen before. Is very different to get inspired by someone's work and another extremely diffrent thing is to copy someone's work. Inspirations and copies are two completely different words and I think many people needs to sit and think about the meaning of each of this words. I think the least you can do if you're copying a piece is give the proper credit to the right person.

And maybe this time I'm the one who's gonna cause controversy, but that's not my intention. The thing is that as a designer, and respecting the work of everyone who's a creator, we need to stand up and defend what's ours. Since the time of Charles Frederick Worth, knock offs have existed and we have to fight this as he did. This is something that happens everywhere and sometimes it happens in countries like Costa Rica, where not everyone's aware of the things that are being shown in fashion weeks or anywhere and it's easy to copy a dress or details on clothes without getting noticed. But the problem is that you're fooling your potencial customers and also yourself.

I found this pictures months ago and maybe it makes clear what I'm trying to say. I would love to show many knock offs that I've seen here in Costa Rica, but I guess I would just create lots of controversy and that's not the point of A la mode, a la mort... let's leave that to Perez Hilton or the Superficial.



Pictures from the Idolator.


Of course the knock off shows her crotch!


The original bubble dress made out of Swarovski plexiglass, from Hussein Chalayan 2007.

5 comments:

  1. I am very happy to read this post as I feel the same way with Gaga. As a Fashion Stylist recording Artist myself, I do find inspiration in a lot of people's works but I have my own ideas too and the better thing to do is mesh the two together not completely steal another's concept.
    I am so over this Gaga thing but like you said "a love and hate relationship". I'm curious to see how she holds up after this album has died down; which others will she pay an "homage" to.

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  2. So I guess I'm not alone in this Gaga-loving-world!
    That's what I've always said, FIND inspiration, watching fashion from anytime is inspiring, copying is not the same. You as an artist know how this works.
    If you wanna be recognized, be recognized for doing your own things!
    Thanks for following the blog and also for taking your time to made this comment.
    :)

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  3. ok... what she's doing is very clear. She is copying all these looks from designers, artists, etc. But think about it... what she's really doing is taking something "underground", and turn it into something "mainstream", right? She is using these pieces that ONLY were known by people who were fashion followers or visual artists, and showing them to people that has nothing to do with that world, but, that can appreciate a good pop song. Everybody loves a pop song, you sing along with it, you remeber the video, etc. That's why a teenager from... don't know, the country or a place that this fashion/artsy world is nowhere near to have a respectful place, think is "cool" or groundbreaking when they see her with these pieces, making "cool" dance moves with it, etc. But they have a tv, and they can see her videos directed by consolidated visual artists and film makers (which I already told you before) that make this whole thing look even "cooler". I think that's where this whole "Gaga being unique" it's all about. She might be "unique" in terms that NOBODY had done that before, turn the heads of people who didn't even know who Gareth Pugh was and making him SO famous that even Beyonce wants a piece of his collection. Just my opinion.

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  4. I think that's one of the things that bothers me the most about her: she's turning everything into "mainstream"! She's not leaving anything for the underground. She's making everything "pop". Like Fred Butler or any of this designers, she's making them another Britney or Jessica but from the fashion world. And I think that what makes them special was the fact that they were unique, unknown...
    Gracias x tu comment, kiddo!
    Siempre amo discutir de pop culture con vos!

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  5. what's happening with gaga as I said before is exactly the same that happened with avril lavigne and the whole "punk" movement, she make skulls look cute and appealing to 13 years old, when I was 13 (yeah back in the 90s) a 13 year old girl would NEVER EVER wear skulls, now you can see the little elementary school girls wearing chucks and skulls all over.

    It's a fact that she is taking something that used to be underground to mainstream, but what's the credit for lady gaga and her 'creative' ideas having the best team of creative people behind her controlling every single detail...she's just major poser to me.

    I may suck at fashion but if you mixed it with music I would have lots to say :)

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