Exclusive

Inside Lady Gaga's Incredible American Horror Story Fashion: I Don't Just Put on Whatever's Crazy!

Exclusive! Actress-singer clears up the most common misconception about her

By Kristin Dos Santos Oct 14, 2015 12:00 PMTags
Watch: Lady Gaga Dishes on "AHS: Hotel" Fashions

For a show that has horrifying eyeball-less creatures jumping out of mattresses, it's no small feat that our own eyes can't stop looking at one thing: The fashion. Especially when it comes to American Horror Story's newest star, Lady Gaga.

Sure, Gaga's first scene with Matt Bomer, in which they hit a graveyard, had a foursome and slit some throats (hey, we all have hobbies!) was memorable for many reasons, but....Did you see that epic, floor-length red coat?!  

The fashion is its own fascinating, remarkable character on American Horror Story: Hotel, and when we sat down with Gaga herself on the set—after getting a special tour of her wardrobe room—she was almost giddy about it.

You can see our exclusive Lady Gaga wardrobe tour tonight on E! News at 7 and 11 p.m.!

"It's amazing. It's exciting. There are archives from beyond from designers," the 29-year-old singer-actress gushes. "Things that are being resurrected. Things that are being really pushed."

FX

Of course, it's not exactly the first time we've seen Gaga in show-stopping looks—Her raw meat dress at the 2010 VMA's ring any bells? But the music icon also wants to clear up a common misconception people have about her: It's not about looking "crazy."

 "When I go in and I see a rack," Gaga tells E! News, "something that people probably don't think about me…They think I just go in there and I put on whatever's crazy [laughs], which is fine.  But I don't do that. I go in with my script and I'm like, ‘OK, where are we? We're getting ready to go out hunting. OK, I definitely need my hunting glove, and I definitely would wear my hair up because I don't want to get blood in my hair.'There's a whole process of things. I'll say, ‘Why would she be wearing a jacket now? She's not going out. Or she would be wearing a dressing gown because she's home with the kids. Or she would want to assert to Chloe Sevigny  her maternal side to her in this scene. She's wearing black. I want to wear white.'"

Gaga floored AHS viewers in last week's Hotel premiere, which reeled in more than 12 million viewers. And tonight, we'll get to see more as to what makes Gaga's Countess character tick. And of course, more fashion.

For wardrobe designer Lou Eyrich, working with Gaga has been like a dream. "Gaga as the Countess, she's timeless. She's been alive for 100 years, so she can basically wear anything she wants from the turn of the century to contemporary times and be in fashion, and she's very elegant, monied. Always dressed to the nines, looking fabulous. Perfectly curated from head to toe."

FX

And also, apparently, perfectly weighted down. That red-coat cemetery outfit from the premiere? It weighs at least 35 to 50 pounds, according to Gaga.

"My manager, Bobby Campbell, just said to me," Gaga muses, " ‘You're like a contortionist. You just stand there for hours in pain those outfits and you have no clue when you're on stage and you get off and it just all hits you.' And he's right. That's exactly what happens."

And yet to Gaga, it's just another day of being Gaga.  "It's what I do," she explains. "That's my art. And that's what people don't always really know about me. [They think] I'm always putting things on to be provocative or shocking for the sake of it. But actually, it's not that easy to wear all of those things and to do it with poise and precision and to hit your mark every time, for a director. So [American Horror Story] is actually really stretching me in a great way. It's like I have to take the things that I'm good at and make them even better, and keep them the same every time but still loose so that [executive producer] Ryan [Murphy] gets something really truly organic from me."

Click through Gaga's best looks on American Horror Storywith inside scoop from Gaga herself and her designer! And tune into Hotel tonight on FX, and watch our tour of her closet below.