How does one style the fashion dynamo Lady Gaga herself? Artists Aside had the chance to ask Lance Victor Moore all about creating face masks for Gaga, high fashion, and the lessons he’s learned along the way.

Never did a young independent designer imagine his lockdown would involve working with Lady Gaga. Being a novice to the fashion industry, the couture mask maker was presented with an extraordinary opportunity to create accessories for Gaga’s cyberpunky 2020 album Chromatica.

Lance was the perfect designer for the fashion revolutionary to reach out to. His avant-garde work had previously been demonstrated in fashion shows, but it was the luxurious yet functional covid masks he’d created at the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic that had piqued the attention of the internet and celebrity buyers alike.

“Gaga had just released her Chromatica album. And because of the pandemic, they were of course having to navigate how to shoot a music video, how to do the MTV awards and magazine editorials,” Lance explains.

“As a fan of hers anyways, being stuck in the pandemic and all of a sudden having this wonderful opportunity, I said ‘Of course, just tell me what you guys want.’”

The San Francisco-based designer’s first commission came in the form of the MTV awards. Tasked with creating a covid mask that was both edgy and high fashion at once, the result was a red mask emblazoned with horns, which Gaga wore for an acceptance speech.

“I was just happy for the opportunity,” Lance shares, “but Gaga’s team wrote back and said ‘We’re not done yet. We really loved the piece, and we want some more pieces because we’re shooting a music video’.”

And that’s how Lance’s second gig came to be, designing elegant masks with a punky flair for Lady Gaga’s ‘911’ music video – an iconic gold metal mask and a silver spiky crown.

“Those were the pieces they chose, and they’re now a part of that video’s history,” Lance says proudly.

As well as working with the Mother Mons†er herself, Lance’s career has led him to working with other aesthetic-driven artists, including electronic singer Grimes and rockstar-rapper Machine Gun Kelly.

Not only was working with Gaga his earliest major experience, it was also what Lance describes as “one of the nicest experiences I ever had in this industry”.

“I got very lucky with the Gaga stuff,” he acknowledges. “If the opportunity is with someone who I’m really excited to work with, it’s great. It motivates you and gets you excited to help them get their vision across.

The former Cooper Union college student originally attended the prestigious New York school for painting, but it was after exploring the medium of sculpting that he knew he’d found his niche, getting involved in the early 2000s underground New York scene and creating avant-garde pieces for drag queens, performers and punk rockers. He now regularly leads classes and small forums for students at the Academy of Art and the Academy of Sciences in California.

“A lot of my designs are inspired from nature,” Lance explains. “I wouldn’t say that I’m a nature buff as much as a nature admirer. I live in California, so we have some of the most beautiful topography in the world to explore which is wonderful.

“I’ll go out and find things like thistles, insects, but I’m also big on science. Science and math were things that really interested me, so I use a lot of that in what I do.”

Once he has a concept, there comes the challenge of whether the piece can be realistically crafted, a question Lance poses to his students. “I build everything in my head with lots of models and prototypes before I ever get to a final piece. Then all the parts that are delicate or ornate come afterwards,” he says.

But Lance’s toughest career battle wasn’t to do with designing at all. It was the fight to be properly credited for his own work, something he could never have imagined would happen with one of his creative heroes.

He had long considered Iris van Herpen one of his “holy trinity” of designers, alongside Alexander McQueen and Thierry Mugler. When her team reached out to commission pieces for her 15‑year anniversary couture show, after spotting his work with Grimes, Lance was “floored”.

But his dream collaboration instead became a revelation to the harsh difficulties of being a small designer in the giant industry: Lance’s contribution went entirely uncredited. His modest but dedicated fanbase brought the issue to his attention, pushing for Iris Van Herpen’s page to properly give Lance the credit for his crown and mohawk creations, which he has now received retroactively.

“They never contributed one cent to any of the work being created. They didn’t design the work and they didn’t ship the work. I hand delivered the work to them in Amsterdam, my partner and I flew there to hand deliver it and to fit it on models and we also stayed for two weeks up until the show to help out.”

It was thanks to Seattle artist Casey Curran, who was receiving praise for Lance’s creations, that the trajectory changed. Curran put out a public statement that he’d made a sculpture for the show, whilst Lance had made the head pieces.

“As a fashion designer it’s very hard to have your work shown in something like Vogue or Harper’s Bazaar, some of the biggest fashion magazines in the world, and see your work there and not have credit for it. It was heartbreaking. It’s like being a rock star and not getting credit in The Rolling Stone,” he says.

For his students, he offers an unvarnished look at life in the industry. From practical advice to sharing his good and bad experiences working with megastars, Lance admits he’s committed to giving young creatives honest guidance.

He says: “A lot of young people are so scared to rock the boat.

“If you’re lucky enough to have an opportunity, you should take it, but you also need to understand your rights as a designer and not be scared to ask for what you’re entitled to.

“I’ve learned that through a lot of trial and error in this industry. I’ve been doing it professionally ever since the whole Gaga thing happened and I’ve definitely learned a lot in those six years.”

With many exciting projects on the horizon for Lance Victor Moore, one thing is for sure: he will continue to change the faces of the music industry. OA