Fifteen years ago, as she prepared to hit the 2010 VMAs red carpet on Sept. 12, 2010, Lady Gaga had a backup plan for her meat dress. If the tailor-made look didn’t fit, if the meat spoiled or it dripped too much blood, the rising superstar had something else ready on the rack. But Franc Fernandez, the designer of the dress that is today on display at the Park MGM in Las Vegas, had worked three long days to create it, draping butcher cuts on a mannequin torso. “Obviously, I didn’t want that backup plan to happen,” he tells Billboard.

The meat dress, one of three Gaga wore during MTV’s 2010 Video Music Awards, did not launch her career: “Poker Face” had topped the Billboard Hot 100 the previous year, and she won eight awards that night for top 5 hits “Bad Romance” and “Telephone.” But the

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