Rising Australian designer counts Lady Gaga and Madonna as fans
Now, Samuel Lewis is ready for his moment in the spotlight.
Few stars’ wardrobe choices are as dissected as Lady Gaga’s, and that’s truer than ever in the era of Mayhem. The performer’s seventh album is grungy and rebellious, so it’s fitting that instead of being costumed exclusively by a major fashion house, Gaga enlisted the work of a newcomer who shares her renegade approach. Meet Australian-Taiwanese designer Samuel Lewis, who has crafted outfits for her music videos and, more recently, the Grammys red carpet and main stage at Coachella. For Gaga’s performance in Rio de Janeiro in May, Lewis worked with costume designer Seth Pratt to create a satin peasant-sleeve dress in the colours of the country’s flag, seen by a record-breaking live audience of 2.5 million.
Such visibility is something 26-year-old Lewis, who was born in Canberra and works as a freelance designer and consultant, is still getting used to. “In the beginning, I felt a responsibility to not only represent her and her vision but also myself,” he says from LA, where he’s currently visiting. Lewis doesn’t have an Australian accent owing to his childhood, during which his father’s work for the Australian embassy took the family between India, Vietnam, New Zealand and the Philippines.
“I’d known I was interested in fashion from a young age,” he recalls, “but I think you tend to hide yourself a little when you’re surrounded by a lot of people, and you don’t understand what it is to pursue what you love.”
A wealth of inspirations from a peripatetic upbringing manifest in his work, which is visually and materially rich and incorporates a forensic focus on silhouette.
Take Gaga’s opening look at Coachella weekend one in April: an enormous red gown partially made of theatre curtains that draped along the sides of a metres-wide iron cage – equal parts futuristic and referential.
After high school, Lewis moved to Italy to study at the esteemed Florentine fashion college Polimoda, and worked for London designer Mowalola between assignments. “It helped me to understand the ideas we have as designers don’t have to be the most complicated things in the world,” he says. “It truly is just about having a smart idea and going through with it.”
Word of Lewis’s designs circulated even before his graduation.
A Mattress dress from his 2022 graduate collection was pulled for various magazine photo shoots, exhibiting his work far and wide. “I feel like that was my entrance for stylists to start knowing me and for people to start paying attention,” he says. Unafraid to DM his idols (“I have always been a firm believer in just messaging people,” he says), his work began to appear on everyone from Madonna to Chappell Roan, who wore a corseted black-and-white bodysuit and nun’s habit at a festival last August. Before he graduated, Lewis caught the attention of Gaga’s stylists, Nick Royal and Peri Rosenzweig, who were the first to order a custom piece from him, then sought his creations for other clients. Last year, Lewis was asked to submit a piece for Gaga’s ‘Disease’ music video. “At that point I wasn’t even thinking about a response from her fans or the world,” he says of fitting sessions that evolved into a working relationship. “I was just thinking about the response from her and the people in the room.” It helped that Lewis was already a Gaga fan and familiar with her broad oeuvre. “Nick and Peri are really true artists when it comes to creating a vision,” he says. “I couldn’t have done it without their constant voices.”
Inspired by historical haute couturiers, as well as opera and theatre performance, Lewis was beginning to explore darker, more mature themes in his work when Gaga’s team reached out. With her new album probing ideas of grunge and decay, it’s a fitting collaboration. While there are often negative connotations associated with how things disintegrate over time, Lewis sees “the beauty behind decay and the ways in which our clothes wear down”. For the superstar’s ‘Disease’ music video, he built the illusion of decomposition through hand-dyed silk.
It’s been an unexpected ride for the designer, who was unsure of where he fitted in the fashion world after finishing university. “I struggled so hard to find an internship because of not being European – nobody wants to sponsor your visa,” he says. He eventually branched out on his own. It wasn’t long until others, including some of the biggest names in music, wanted to be a part of his creativity. “Working on custom and with musicians, [people] approach you for a reason. They want your vision and that’s the best part, I think,” he says. “It comes to a true collaboration between what it is you’re wanting and what it is they’re wanting, and how you can come to an agreement on it and a great middle point.”
For all the positive changes in his life, Lewis still has eyes on future goals. Within the next year, he hopes to release his first solo eponymous collection since finishing university, which will form the groundwork for a solo brand, the purest distillation of his own vision. One gets the feeling Samuel Lewis’s world of mayhem is only just beginning.
Vogue Australia’s July issue is on sale now.
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