Apple Music Live: Lady Gaga ‘MAYHEM Requiem’ Premiere
Apple Music marked the premiere of Apple Music Live: Lady Gaga MAYHEM Requiem with a large-scale activation at The Grove in Los Angeles yesterday, ending with a surprise appearance from Lady Gaga herself.
The event unfolded as a theatrical procession moved from Apple The Grove to AMC The Grove 14, where Gaga appeared alongside around 40 performers in a staged living portrait framed by cascading florals and veiled backdrops. Frequent Gaga collaborators Ian McKenzie, Victor Rojas, and China Taylor took part in the performance, with choreography by Chris Downey-Asher and SaraAnne Fahey, while an eight-piece brass band played sombre New Orleans-inspired jazz interpretations of tracks from MAYHEM.
Billed as the final MAYHEM procession, the visual direction leaned into Victorian mourning dress and undertaker tailoring, with custom cloaks, exaggerated hats, and sharply theatrical silhouettes transforming The Grove into an extension of Gaga’s MAYHEM Requiem world.
At the centre of it all was Gaga herself, wearing a Givenchy Haute Couture Fall-Winter 1997 look designed by Alexander McQueen. The red-and-black silk satin gown, trimmed with black lace and topped with a matching bolero featuring tasselled epaulettes and flared sleeves, felt entirely in sync with the gothic melodrama that has shaped this MAYHEM era.
For longtime Gaga fans, this kind of fashion reference point makes perfect sense. McQueen’s theatricality, dark romanticism, and fascination with performance have always aligned with Gaga’s visual language, so pulling from this period of Givenchy felt less like costume and more like a continuation of the world she has been building around this project. The palette alone mirrored the mood of the music, balancing seduction, mourning, glamour, and menace all at once.
There was also something fitting about Gaga choosing an archival McQueen look for an event built around live performance and spectacle. The silhouette still feels dramatic nearly three decades later, particularly with the sculpted shoulders, jet embellishment, lace overlays, and fan accessory amplifying every movement during the procession. Rather than relying on a new custom look, the archival choice added history and weight to the performance, connecting fashion past and present in a way that only Gaga can really sell.
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