Hello and welcome to the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service, with me and

Ashkumat Andadowati.

It's the 12th of September 2010, and inside Los Angeles Nokia Theatre, Hollywood's glitter

arti have assembled for the MTV Video Music Awards.

There is stiff competition for video of the year.

Everyone from Jay-Z to Justin Bieber are in the running for the biggest prize of the night.

But it is an Italian-American singer who claims the coveted moonman Trophy for her hit record,

Bad Romance.

Some know her as Stephanie Gemmanotta, but most know her as Lady Gaga.

As Gaga rises from her seat, her hair switches around her shoulders, she embodies West Coast

grammar, except for one thing.

Her petite frame has been draped in thinly sliced cuts of beef.

I think a lot of the fear of mine was the weight of it, because I think she wore about

like 60 pounds.

Like, you can't kind of have that hang off the shoulders, so I wanted her to be comfortable,

but still look like a giant slab of meat.

That's Frank Fernandez, the man behind the meat dress.

He's the one responsible for designing Gaga's fleshy frock, but how did he get the extraordinary

idea in the first place?

Nicola Formichetti was their stylist at the time, his stylist, and at first he just wanted

a purse made of meat, and he wanted it to kind of look like quilted like a Chanel purse.

And somewhere within those emails we suggested, like, let's just do a full dress, and, you

...