Gaga opened doors for me to work with European designers and manufacturers. I could never make clothes like that in LA. I developed a blend of high-fashion and luxury womenswear with an artistic and theatrical costume design, which made me feel like I was authentically part of the fashion community. We worked with some of the best photographers and creatives in the world. It was so fulfilling.

In all of my projects for Gaga, I emphasized the use of dialogue and collaboration—both of which are still very prevalent in my work today. I would always collaborate with Gaga or another designer, choreographer or photographer to really elevate the final product. Working with Gaga was inherently collaborative. It was really us just trying stuff out.

There was a real separation between celebrity stylists and fashion stylists at the time. Someone like Madonna was the only artist who would get clothes from a big fashion house, like Chanel. There was a clear separation between the fashion and entertainment industries. No one would lend out clothes to these huge artists. It was quite a closed door. There were a couple stylists that would cross over that were pretty top-tier, but not many. This separation is what drove Gaga and I ('Ye, too!) to design and create our own costumes and clothes.

I credit Gaga and 'Ye for breaking down those doors. We would basically make pieces for shoots and for performances because fashion brands wouldn't lend us cool stuff.

I am so proud of what we were able to accomplish. Gaga and I developed the concepts behind some of her most iconic dresses with the costume design team: the "Meat Dress", the "Fire Bra", the "Bleeding Dress". I oversaw the design process and worked with the fabricators and ateliers that constructed each piece. She would just call me and go into a stream of consciousness on an idea or a concept. She would reference a painting or something that really inspired her and then I would riff on it and then propose ideas. We would go back and forth until it was something that she really loved. Then, I would go figure out how to make it.

Gaga referenced the Frida Kahlo painting,“Memory, the Heart”, which became the main inspiration for the bleeding dress as a result of the paparazzi flashes killing her. I was really inspired by all of Hussein Chalayan's dresses at the time. The "Bleeding Dress" and the "Living Dress" became my own interpretation and version of those dress concepts. The idea behind the "Meat Dress" came to me during a visit to the the Centre Pompidou. I saw a picture of a performance artist who used to make dresses out of meat and grass. I sent that reference over and we created our own version of this. We used the dress on a shoot with Terry Richardson for Vogue Hommes Japan and at the MTV VMA’s.

Everything we did was extremely collaborative. I can't take full credit for everything because there were so many great people who contributed to each and every piece. The ideas, designs, constructions and executions were a group effort.

Watch the "Living Dress" in action here.