Lady Gaga

Tom Munro; styled by: Joe Zee

More than that, Hilton continues, "She made pop music exciting again, in a way that I, as an intent observer of pop culture, haven't experienced since Madonna. Exciting and dangerous. She plays by her own rules." What Hilton is referring to are the singer's nonstop feats of theater. Lady Gaga, christened Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta in 1986, collaborates with a creative team called Haus of Gaga, a group of stylists, fashion designers, producers, and her choreographer, Laurieann Gibson, to remix art, fashion, modern dance, and musical references into her scandalous live shows and videos.

Some of the highlights include her performance at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards (she won Best New Artist), for which she wore a dress that exploded fake blood, and the scenes in her videos in which she rises from a wheelchair to walk after removing her leg braces ("Paparazzi") and smokes in bed next to a skeleton ("Bad Romance"). Not to mention her always outlandish hairdos— extensions woven into a brown elephant atop her head, or a gold unicorn horn—or the sparkler cone bustier in which she ended her appearance on the MuchMusic Video Awards in Toronto.

Gaga often plays with gender roles, aping transvestites and toying with multiple boys, or wears extreme makeup and accessories (a poodle purse made of fake blond hair) to undercut the "I'm hot" message that her very revealing ensembles send. It's this quality of half showbiz, half art biz that has pushed her impact to the fashion realm (her "Bad Romance" video features Alexander McQueen designs) and the highbrow art world. Miuccia Prada made her dress for a recent performance at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles; conceptual artist Damien Hirst of formaldehydeshark fame designed her piano. It's also why she has the literati debating questions such as: Just how smart is Lady Gaga? Her music is fun candy, but her message is deeper. Or is it? Does she really do it all herself? Is she the next Madonna, the next Kylie Minogue, or the next David Bowie, whom she claims to aspire to be? Is she really only 23? Is she actually a hermaphrodite?

Clearly, with the whole globe delighting in her music, or at least scratching their heads and pausing, Lady Gaga has hit the triplecherry culture-jam jackpot. But, of course, she didn't spring from the ocean, fully formed. She's been working her ass (which, despite comments from herself and others about curves, is, these days, anyway, tiny) off for this since she was four years old and learning piano by ear.

One thing you need to know about Lady Gaga to understand her is that she grew up in Manhattan. Children brought up on that skyscraper-barnacled, 1.6-million-scurrying-people-populated, 13-mile-long island are different from you and me. For developing selves in those man-made steel-and-concrete canyons, a compression happens, of neurosis, of vision, of ambition, of cultural and carnal knowledge, of fashion information. There is often a concomitant value confusion that leads to a premature world-weariness. (Love? Money? Fame? Art? The right boots? It's all so much closer to them but just as far as it is for anyone else. Crazy-making.)

Lady Gaga wants to meet me for Sunday breakfast at the Westside Restaurant on 69th and Broadway to show me where she grew up. She lived with her first-generation Italian-American parents, and then a sister, younger by six years, in an apartment on the Upper West Side, a few blocks from here. She went to the all-girls Catholic school Convent of the Sacred Heart. She and her friends, when they weren't studying—the school is notoriously rigorous— hung out here. Westside Restaurant is a traditional Greek diner (New York institutions called Greek not because they serve much Mediterranean food—they serve primarily the same classic American food as truck-stop diners—but because they are owned by Greek immigrants). The place is teeming with old ladies, joggers, and dads with their kids, and they don't take reservations, so I have to order to keep my table. By the time I see the telltale chauffeured black Escalade SUV outside, I've already finished my food.

"Sorry, it's so impolite," I say to Lady Gaga, who has arrived in a relatively subdued and entirely of-the-moment outfit: men's vintage YSL overcoat, beneath which is an incredibly good vintage Thierry Mugler score, an early-'90s black peak-shouldered and lapelled coatdress, worn with gray suede YSL narrow-wedge-heeled platforms. Her only outré Gaga-isms are her wolf-spider false eyelashes, top and bottom, and perhaps her new puppy, a Shiba Inu, in a carrying case that must be hurriedly hidden under the table. She elicits barely a glance from the diners.

"Please, I'm Italian; I'm glad you ate," she replies, then leans over, scopes my almost-bare plate, and guesses, accurately, "Two poached eggs, hash browns, and whole-wheat toast."

Her early CV includes several waitressing gigs, and her easy camaraderie with the staff, who recognize her as a regular as well as a famous face, is not that of a star being faux down-to-earth, but someone who not all that long ago did her time at restaurant jobs. "I was really good at it. I always got big tips. I always wore heels to work!" she says. "I told everybody stories, and for customers on dates, I kept it romantic. It's kind of like performing."

This Is A Developing Story

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