What was it like designing the white straightjacket coat for her Today Showappearance?
“When she kicked off her Monster Ball tour, they said they wanted a new jacket. They wanted purple at first, so I got three whole cows in purple. It’s a lot of skin. It takes about 200 square feet of animal skin to make one of those oversize coats. At the last minute, they go, ‘We want it to be white.’ So I went back my factory and found all these nice lambskins and cut that up and put it together. And I’m really happy how it turned out.” Did you hit any snags while designing for Lady Gaga? “When we were doing the white straightjacket we worked from 7 a.m. to 4 in the morning the next day. We needed to deliver it to her at the Today Show. They said you have to get it to us 5 a.m. Out of nowhere it’s 4 a.m., so I hop in a cab with this whole motorcycle straightjacket — and I pull up to 48th street and it was MAYHEM. I was literally hand-sewing the tag into the jacket on my way to the Today Show in the cab.” What has Lady Gaga done for your career? “I think she represents my future custo
