Five Sizzling Moments in Meat-Fashion History!

Lady Gaga owes debt to America's Next Top Model, the Beatles—and Lady Gaga

Days after Lady Gaga donned rib eye or whatnot at the Video Music Awards, we're still talking about the outfit.

Yes, meat does makes a statement—as these haute beef fashions prove:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. America's Next Top Meat-Wearers: Well, when you schedule a photo shoot in Manhattan's Meatpacking District, these things tend to happen—these things being models standing in a meat locker, looking fierce in meat clothes. One contestant, Amy "Amis" Jenkins, summed up the 2008 stunt the best, telling Zap2It: "I think the photos turned out pretty awesome—creepy and disgusting, yet still alluring...It was gross."

2. Lady Gaga's Meat Bikini: If you believe less is more, especially when it comes to cholesterol, then you'll agree last week's teeny, tiny, polka-dotted blood-rare number for Japan'sVogue Hommes was the appetizer that showed up the main course.

3. The Beatles Served Raw: When the Fab Four donned butcher coats and posed amid baby dolls 'n' beef for Yesterday and Today, the general public was aghast. (Note: The VMAs, much less Gaga, didn't exist in the mid-1960s, so people weren't used to such spectacle.) The album was quickly recalled; the cover shot hastily covered up. But meat lovers prevailed. Today, a copy of the original so-called "butcher cover" could run you thousands of dollars on eBay.

4. The Aqua Teen Hunger Force Tribute: Last year, Chicago designer/costumer Jia Crens got some attention—as she well should have—for a little salami-and-bacon number she cooked up for a birthday party themed to the food-populated Cartoon Network series. Much like Jenkins before her, Crens described her creation thusly: "This is the most awesome, disgusting thing I have ever made."

5. The Original? While an Irish punk band named the Undertones didn't beat the Beatles to the beef counter, it did beat Gaga (and a famous flank-steak sculpture) to the meat dress. The cover of the group's 1983 compilation album, All Wrapped Up, depicts a model all wrapped up in Sunday barbecue fodder. And the sausage necklace is a nice touch that not even Gaga dared touch.