On September 12, 2010, American singer Lady Gaga wore a dress to the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards made entirely out of raw beef.

[1][2][3] Designed by Franc Fernandez and styled by Nicola Formichetti, the dress was condemned by animal rights groups, while named by Time as the top fashion statement of 2010.

The press speculated on the originality of the idea, with comparisons made to similar images found in contemporary art and popular culture.

As with her other dresses, it was archived, but went on display in 2011 at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame after being preserved by taxidermists as a type of jerky.

It was treated with bleach, formaldehyde and detergent to kill any bacteria, and was reconditioned by being dyed dark red once it was preserved so to give it the same appearance as when first worn.

[13] Preceding Fernandez's creation, Gaga had worn a bikini made of meat on the front cover of the Japanese edition of Vogue.

[14] She later wore a faux-meat dress while performing the songs "Americano" and "Poker Face" during her Born This Way Ball concert tour (2012–2013).

[15] Following the VMAs, media outlets attempted to analyze the meaning of the dress with suggestions by BBC News ranging from anti-fashion, to feminism, aging and decay, and society's attitude towards meat.

[20] Vegetarian singer Morrissey stated that he felt the dress was acceptable as long as it was a social or political statement, and not just a "loony idea",[21] pointing out that artist Linder Sterling had previously worn a meat dress in 1982 to protest against what she believed to be the perception of women by men.

[19][24] An example of a garment made from meat stitched together in the same way as the Lady Gaga meat dress was worn at the Slade School of Art postgraduate degree exhibition opening in London, England, in July 1979, when British performance artist Robert Connolly wore a two-piece suit made of slices of salami.

[27][28] The Daily Telegraph noted the similarity of Lady Gaga's meat dress to the cover of The Undertones' 1983 compilation album All Wrapped Up, which showed a female model wearing a dress and gloves made of cuts of meat (mostly bacon) held in place with plastic wrap and accessorized with a sausage necklace.

[33] Although it was Gaga's third costume change at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards, the meat dress was immediately described as the "most outrageous fashion moment" of the evening.

[40] The video game Yakuza 5, originally released in 2012, satirizes Gaga's meat dress and her love of Japanese culture through a sidequest where you play the role of tour guide to a world-famous global superstar singer known as "Daddy Papa", self-described as an anti-conformist lending a voice to the voiceless, who wears a dress made of seaweed that your player character describes as a "dumpster ensemble" that "smells like the ocean".

[citation needed] When "Weird Al" Yankovic did a parody of Gaga's "Born This Way", titled "Perform This Way", he included a lyrical reference to the meat dress ("I strap prime rib to my feet / Cover myself with raw meat / I'll bet you've never seen a skirt steak worn this way") and had a dancer dressed in a similar outfit in the music video.