From the first time I saw Lady Gaga at the Monster Ball in 2010, when I was just ten years old, my lifelong dream has been to design a custom look for her. It became my birthday wish every year when I blew out my candles: I told myself that, like Gaga, if I worked hard and fought for what I loved—no matter what anyone thought of me—anything could be possible.

Fifteen years later, I returned to Madison Square Garden for the Mayhem Ball—her current worldwide tour—and Gaga closed the show in one of my leather jackets. But more on that in a moment.

The aesthetic of Gaga’s early days left its mark on my wardrobe when I was a teenager. It was not just the debilitatingly wacky footwear, the blunt bobs, winged liner, and leather-studded fetishwear of Born This Way, but how these outrageous l

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