Lady Gaga Influences

She has stated that she is "very into fashion" and that it is "everything" to her. LAdy Gaga's love of fashion came from her mother, who was "always very well kept and beautiful." Lady Gaga's claims that: "When I'm writing music, I'm thinking about the clothes I want to wear on stage. It's all about everything altogether — performance art, pop performance art, fashion. For me, it's everything coming together and being a real story that will bring back the super-fan. I want to bring that back. I want the imagery to be so strong that fans will want to eat and taste and lick every part of us." She says that she channels Versace in everything Lady Gaga does, and considers Donatella Versace as her muse in many ways. Melissa Magsaysay of Los Angeles Times commented, "[Gaga's] aversion to wearing a top and bottom at the same time [...] swigging champagne and being fanned by oily men in Speedos [is] very Donatella-esque." She has her own creative production team called the Haus of Gaga, which Lady Gaga handles personally. The team creates many of her clothes, stage props, and hairdos. She is a natural brunette, but Lady Gaga's hair is dyed blonde because LAdy Gaga was often mistaken for fellow musician Amy Winehouse. Towards the end of 2008, comparisons were made between the fashions of Gaga and recording artist Christina Aguilera, noting similarities in their styling, hair, and make-up. Aguilera later claimed she was "completely unaware of [Gaga]" and "didn't know if it [was] a man or a woman." Afterward, Gaga released a statement in which she welcomed the comparisons due to the attention providing useful publicity. She said, "She's such a huge star and if anything I should send her flowers, because a lot of people in America didn't know who I was until that whole thing happened. It really put me on the map in a way."

Lady Gaga attributes much of her early success as a mainstream artist to her gay fans and is considered by some to be a fledgling gay icon. Lady Gaga claimed difficulty in the early stages of her career in getting her songs to receive radio airplay and stated, "[t]he turning point for me was the gay community. I've got so many gay fans and they're so loyal to me and they really lifted me up. They'll always stand by me and I'll always stand by them. It's not an easy thing to create a fanbase." Lady Gaga thanked FlyLife, a Manhattan-based LGBT marketing company with whom her label Interscope works, in the liner notes of her debut studio album, The Fame, saying, "I love you so much. You were the first heartbeat in this project, and your support and brilliance means the world to me. I will always fight for the gay community hand in hand with this incredible team." Lady Gaga believes that "there is no fcking spirit in the world like in the gay community. [...] I'm always gonna be the most supportive chick on the planet of the gay community. Every time I go to cities to play, even in arenas, I always make sure I play a second show at a gay club." In response to those who have referred to her as a gay icon, Gaga said, "If I can let people in on that joy [of gay culture] then that would make me a deserved gay icon, but it's not going to be for my shoes. It's gonna be because I really love [the gay community]." Some of her first major performances were at events related to gay culture. Her first televised performance was in May 2008 at the NewNowNext Awards, an awards show aired by the LGBT television network Logo, where she sang her song "Just Dance." In June of the same year, she performed the song again at the San Francisco Pride event. She said that "being invited to play" at the event "was a real turning point for me as an artist." When Lady Gaga appeared as a guest on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in May 2009, She praised DeGeneres, a l*sbian and gay icon, for being "an inspiration for women and for the gay community."
Source: wikipedia