Meet the Indie Designers Dressing Today’s Top Pop Stars

For her first main-stage appearance at Coachella this past spring, Addison Rae emerged hanging from a hot-pink cage enveloped in a frothy gray cloud of tulle. The TikTok star turned pop diva opened her set wearing a deconstructed ball gown with a ballerina-inspired fitted bodice, a tutu hem, and a layered train as she breathily sang the lyrics to “Diet Pepsi.” The ensemble was made of white tulle dyed with streaks of sooty gray, which both added a sense of depth to the fabric and helped to tell Rae’s story. A bright-white gown would have been too pure; as she sings in her hit song, she’s “losing all [her] innocence in the back seat.” The look also perfectly captured the essence of its designer, Miss Claire Sullivan, who is known for eccentric high-femme glamour.

For modern pop stars like Rae, many of whom became famous via the internet, it’s no longer enough to simply deliver a knockout performance of a popular song. It’s also essential to cultivate a vibe—one that can cut through the noise and set them apart from the rest. To achieve this, an unforgettable one-of-a-kind look is key. Increasingly, these defining and memorable looks are masterminded by a handful of independent designers whose names and know-how add a layer of cultural currency and IYKYK fashion cred.

Getty Images/Courtesy Miss Claire Sullivan

Rosalía wearing a custom look by Miss Claire Sullivan

Rae has also worn pieces from mainstream labels like Versace, Chloé, and Rodarte to perform, but her preference for Sullivan, who first made her name in the fashion scene as part of the downtown New York fashion collective Vaquera before breaking out on her own, telegraphs something about who she wants to be as an artist. Rae’s worked hard to be taken seriously, establishing herself as an “alternative” pop girlie, with a sound that references singers like Lana Del Rey and Björk and a tongue-in-cheek aesthetic based on teenage Britney Spears on the cover of Rolling Stone in 1999, wearing mall-bought lingerie.

“It’s interesting because when I first started working on my brand, I never really understood why people wanted to dress celebrities so much,” Sullivan says. “And there is a stamp of approval that comes with it. But I think beyond that, it’s going back to world-building and storytelling. Artists build their world in a certain way, and it’s as much for them as it is for their fans.” Sullivan has also created looks for Rosalía, Doechii, Lady Gaga, and Caroline Polachek.

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Lady Gaga wearing a custom look by Raul Lopez of Luar

Pop stars collaborating with designers to hone their aesthetic isn’t new. Kansai Yamamoto’s jumpsuits defined David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust era in the ’70s, Jean Paul Gaultier’s cone-bra corset became the visual shorthand for Madonna during her Blond Ambition tour in 1990, and the Smashing Pumpkins went Goth in the early 2000s with the help of Olivier Theyskens’s dramatic designs. And then there’s the decades-long collaboration between designer Bob Mackie and Cher; his beaded, bedazzled, and barely there bodycon dresses became her signature look in the ’70s and ’80s.

The difference between then and now is that those designer collaborations happened more in the background and solely in service of the artist’s image. Today, the storytelling goes both ways; wearing a look by the right designer is a statement in and of itself. A cosign from Miss Claire Sullivan confers its own cred.

Storytelling is what Luar’s Raul Lopez loves the most about outfitting pop stars for performances. “I’ve always seen musicians as storytellers,” he says. “Luar is also about telling stories; it’s about New York, my identity, my community, and how all these stories align. For me, it’s not about dressing a celebrity. It’s about contributing to the cultural moment.”

There was no bigger cultural moment this year than Bad Bunny’s performance at the Super Bowl halftime show, when, among many memorable moments, Lady Gaga performed a salsa version of “Die With a Smile” wearing a light-blue bias-pleated gown with a tiered and ruffled skirt. There were two notable details: Gaga was wearing a Latin-American designer (Lopez is of Dominican descent) at the historic performance, and the dress was sky blue, a nod to the original Puerto Rican flag, commonly associated with the independence movement. Lopez had another winning moment this year, creating the instantly iconic “twin suit” worn simultaneously by Gaga and Doechii in the music video for their duet, “Runway,” from the Devil Wears Prada 2 soundtrack. (The duo also wore Miss Claire Sullivan ball gowns for another scene in the video.)

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Chappell Roan performing in a custom look by Zana Bayne

Gaga has always championed independent designers to help create her performance personas, and she reintroduced a level of theatrics to pop music that had fallen out of fashion in years prior. Gaga became synonymous with Alexander McQueen’s Spring 2010 collection, Plato’s Atlantis, when she wore one of the looks in her 2009 “Bad Romance” music video (including the famous armadillo shoes). However, she also created memorable moments working with lesser-known designers like Zana Bayne, a leather artisan who founded her label in 2011 with a focus on leather harnesses and other handmade accessories.

At the time, Bayne lived in New York and was trying to break into the fashion industry with seasonal runway shows. But as the custom orders kept coming, she realized she had stumbled upon a niche that better suited her creative drive. The now Los Angeles–based designer has been at it the longest, but as her work has evolved throughout the years, so has her influence. In 2024, when Chappell Roan performed her massive hit “Good Luck, Babe!” at the MTV Video Music Awards, she was wearing a “knight’s armor” fashioned entirely out of leather and made by Bayne. “The first 10 years of the brand, I was really focused on accessories,” Bayne says. “Around the time Chappell was asking for pieces,

I decided to start doing more garment-based clothing. I was like, ‘If I’ve already made one bodysuit, I can do shorts too.’ ” Roan then wore a full look by Bayne when she performed “Pink Pony Club” at the Grammys the following year, and she’s since created full looks for Lisa, Katseye, and, once again, Lady Gaga, this time for her Mayhem Ball tour.

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Left: David Bowie wearing Kansai Yamamoto. Right: Madonna in Jean Paul Gaultier.

The expectation with such visibility is that designers will capitalize on their one-off designs and create commercial ready-to-wear pieces that can go up for sale following the attention-grabbing moment.

“I got so many people being like, ‘You need to make the dress right now’ or ‘You should have 400 dresses lined up to go as soon as she wears it,’ ” Lopez shared of Gaga’s look at the Super Bowl. “But I feel like it takes away from the historic moment. I respect the artist as much as I respect my brand. And I think it’s more about seeing the stories represented on the stage. It feels more powerful.”

Sullivan feels similarly. “I want to be mindful of keeping the pieces that we make really special,” she says. “And that’s not to say that we can’t do iterations of it, but I think it makes it special for them.”

For Bayne, finding the balance between making custom and ready-to-wear work has become a kind of creative fuel. “I think at the end of the day, there’s a trust between designers and artists in that way, knowing that they’re getting something unique,” she says. “And I think when people see a performer onstage, it’s aspirational, it’s a costume, it’s the superhero version of the artist.” She continues, “As a designer, you have to remove yourself and your ego from the equation. It’s not about you; it’s about this final moment with this very special client and making sure that they’re able to do what they do so well. It’s a lot of responsibility.”

“I love creating for performances because it feels like the garment has a job to do,” Lopez adds. “It has to move, it has to tell a story, it has to project confidence and connect with thousands of people. It’s when fashion is its most alive.”

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