Lady Gaga’s Chromatica Ball Has a Haute Couture History Surprise

Lady Gaga hasn’t walked down the aisle, but we think we know who her favorite wedding dress designer is: Christian Lacroix. The singer memorably made the French master’s wedding dress from his fall 2008 couture collection the sartorial centerpiece of her video for the 2011 single “Judas,” and it appears she hasn’t stopped thinking about his bridal designs since. While archival couture is notoriously hard to actually source, Gaga recently managed to slip into two more pieces.

Yesterday evening, at the long-awaited opening night of her Chromatica Ball world tour in Düsseldorf, Germany, Gaga managed to shock fans with her latest aesthetic choices. Despite the hot pink maximalist look associated with the titular album, her stage design was purely Brutalist, and many of her costumes fit in with that theme. The video interludes, filmed by Nick Knight, managed to add a bit of dreamy romance into the production; in one, Gaga wore two separate couture wedding gowns from the Lacroix archive.

The first was the closing outfit from Lacroix’s fall 2007 couture collection. It’s an elaborate golden-hued gown complete with a silk floral coat and sculptural headpiece that also functions as a veil.

The second was from Lacroix’s fall 2009 couture collection. An elaborate gown complete with a headpiece, the looks is most famous for being the final one Lacroix himself ever showed on the runway for his own label.

Despite being one of the definitive couturiers of the late ’80s and ’90s, Lacroix’s label struggled to remain profitable—and by 2009, it had come to be owned by a Miami-based company specializing in duty-free shops. The new owners effectively pulled the plug on the couture business, and the designer himself largely financed his final show out of his own pocket (Models were paid 50 euros each).

Despite this, vintage Lacroix has reemerged on the red carpet in recent years. Adut Akech wore a 2003 gown to the most recent Met Gala, while Kirsten Dunst donned a 2002 dress to the Oscars. Now, with Gaga completing her trilogy of Lacroix wedding gowns, perhaps we’ll only see more—maybe even one day, at Gaga’s own wedding