If you haven’t yet had the chance to attend a party co-hosted by Lady Gaga, allow us to set the scene for you after last night’s Inez and Vinoodh photography exhibition at the Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills. During cocktail hour, Gaga toddles into the gallery in eight-inch silver platform heels and a matching McQueen mini-dress. She looks like a space-age go-go dancer, with a cascade of blonde hair teased out like the Bride of Frankenstein’s. Gaga mingles, as best as her stilt shoes allow, among the 80 or so guests, trailed the whole time by the blonde coiffure caboose, her single security detail, and a small boy in a black suit—whom, it turns out, is Charles, the son of the Dutch fashion-photographer duo being honored that night.
After circulating the gallery—which showcases Inez and Vinoodh’s striking portraits of Natalie Portman, Gwyneth Paltrow, Drew Barrymore, Mickey Rourke, herself, and many distinguished others—Gaga leads the crowd into an adjacent garden-themed gallery for dinner. Surrounded by edgy still-life floral paintings, also by Inez and Vinoodh, Gaga takes her seat at the center of a long banquette between restaurateur and fellow co-host Michael Chow and Inez, who bares a striking physical resemblance to Gaga minus the disco-ball couture.
After a family-style dinner, during which Gaga occasionally stands up to check on her makeup artist and her other Haus of Gaga friends, whom she jokes are sitting at the “kids’ table,” she rings the side of her red-wine glass for a speech. Not from her, but from her pint-sized buddy, Charles.
“There are great shots. And then there are greater shots,” he says between whispered encouragement from Gaga. “But nothing compares to those from my mom and dad.” More whispers. “Now, my friend Lady Gaga would love to make a speech.”
“I’m so proud of you both,” Gaga tells the photographers after leading the guests in a cheers. “I want to thank you both for inviting me here tonight and tell you what an honor it is for me and my friends. Thank you for believing in us.” Because, as she says, “any friend of Inez’s is a friend of mine,” Gaga also presents each of the guests with special gifts—individual, skull-adorned red-velvet cakes and copies of the very first photograph from her upcoming album, Artpop, set for release on November 11. While waiters distribute the artwork, which depicts a nude Lady Gaga peering out from an elongated ski mask with the album name tattooed in caps on her left forearm—a surprise even to the event’s coordinators—Gaga explains, “I never felt beautiful until the moment I had my picture taken by Inez and Vinoodh.”
Moments later, Vinoodh recalls that he and his wife first met Gaga several years ago in Nebraska after the pop star invited them to photograph her on the set of a music video. They felt an immediate kinship with Gaga, not just personally, but physically, he says. “She and Inez have the same look. Like sisters,” Vinoodh explains. “They are like soul mates and immediately hit it off.” He adds that the rest of the photos taken during the epic photo shoot will be released when Artpop arrives in stores.
As we collect the cover art and gothic confection, Lady Gaga appears immediately behind us. Even though we had been warned by publicists that she would not be speaking to the press, we decide to casually compliment her photo.
“Oh, you like it? Good! What’s your name?” she replies. We identify ourselves, while silently marveling at how Lady Gaga is the most normal person wearing eight-inch silver platform shoes, bleached eyebrows, and Bride of Frankenstein hair we have ever met. (And also how this is a much better reception than the one we received earlier in the evening when a well-known party guest asked us, assuming we were help, which of the assigned seats was hers.)
“Nice to meet you,” she says, giving us a solid handshake. After telling us that she designed the cakes too, she reaches out and flips over the album photo, showing us that it is also an invitation to an “artRave” on November 10 exhibiting Haus of Gaga’s projects and collaborations with Inez and Vinoodh, Robert Wilson, Marina Abramović, and Jeff Koons, and that it was personally signed by Lady Gaga and numbered. “So you’ll be the 120th person out of 150 to see the Artpop, which is what we aspire to be,” she adds. “That’s the hope.”
At that point, a guest cuts in, wondering if Gaga is familiar with her aunt, a Broadway actress who was apparently the inspiration for Funny Girl. Insulted that someone would think she was not an expert on the Barbra Streisand classic, Gaga puts one hand on her hip and finger-snaps, “Don’t you try to Funny Girlme!”
And then she toddles away, turning back, giant hair and all, to stagewhisper, “Enjoy the cake.” As we walk out, a woman wonders aloud why Gaga did not perform at the party. Her husband answers, “I’m pretty sure that her existing here tonight in that outfit and hair was performance enough.”
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