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Lady Gaga came into the public eye as a singer. Her pop tunes mixed the spirit of Madonna with a techno-dance influence that came from her days as a club performer. Even though her music remains her most significant cultural contribution, she has also become a fashion icon because of her unique and daring styles.

Describing Gaga’s fashion is almost as impossible as figuring out how she got her outfits on. She is a mix of Halloween costumes and alien spacecraft inspired outfits all tailored to fit her slender frame and her message of … acceptance? Gaga promotes a message of tolerance. She calls her fans her little monsters, and seems to say through her fashion that personal expression brings happiness.

Yet, her outfits are sometimes so over the top that it makes even some of her most devoted fans question her motivations. At the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards Gaga wore an outfit that gave PETA supporter s the meat sweats. Her raw meat based dress shocked, awed then them became embalmed so that it could be put on public display.

Gaga explained her meat dress as a statement of standing up for what she believed in, but her answer left as many questions as answers in its wake.

Her fashion captures headlines and gains her attention, which is a triumph in the short attention span media age. But perhaps the most surprising this about Gaga’s fashion is that she has maintained a reputation as a sex symbol and created great debates over the clothes she puts on instead of the clothes she has taken off. Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton cannot say the same.