The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Money
Hitting all the right notes
Eyebrows were raised when Tudor teamed up with Lady Gaga – but the partnership has proved a resounding creative success. By Tracey Llewellyn
Two years ago, when Tudor announced Lady Gaga as its first official celebrity ambassador alongside David Beckham, some of the brand’s diehard fans expressed their reservations. The link between the then 91-year-old company and the outspoken artist and activist felt tenuous to them, but for Tudor the message was clear. A brand of reinvention, it adopted the tagline ‘Born to Dare’ in 2017, and for those taking the brand into the 21st century, the then six-time Grammy winner Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta was a perfect fit.
According to a Tudor spokesperson: “Lady Gaga is one of the rare artists out there where you don’t need to explain that she is ‘ born to dare’. She is not afraid to get out of her comfort zone, taking risks and never compromising on her art. This is very much the original spirit that made Tudor the brand that it is today.”
With her name endorsing remarkably few products, and no financial need for her to commit to any, Gaga says there were several reasons for her agreeing to the partnership with Tudor. A major factor was the innovative and brave nature of the brand, plus its interest in collaborating with her rather than simply riding on her gilded coat tails. For example, Tudor agreed to work with director Mark Romanek for its very first campaign with Gaga.
The idea was to have the two sides of Gaga battle against each other in a piano duel – one look with her in dramatic 18thcentury dress, representing the traditional mastering of her art, and the other, with her in a leather suit, representing her disruptive and innovative persona, each side pushing the other to new heights.
The result is a short film that she refers to as daring, celebrating her talent as a musician and relating it to Tudor’s talent as a watchmaker. “Sometimes in this industry, people just want to use your face and your fame to sell a product, but that is not at all what this is,” she says.
Currently 10 months into a Las Vegas residency, Gaga has broken the mould by performing two very different and sold-out shows at the Park MGM – a theatrical pop show entitled Enigma and a stripped back jazz piano concert showcasing the Great American Songbook.
“It’s like the Tudor commercial, showing two sides to me,” she says. “I came to Vegas, and thought why only offer one part of what I do when I’ve been performing jazz music since I was a little girl? Why wouldn’t I bring all of the weapons in my arsenal with me to tackle this town?”
‘I reinvent myself because I like to. It challenges me. The reward is in the creative process – and that’s something Tudor loves’
As demonstrated in the retrospective of her costumes Haus of Gaga, running alongside her Vegas performances, Gaga has a personal style that is beyond eclectic. Now 33, she says that when she was younger, “style was almost like shedding a skin. I would dye my hair, or wear a wig, or change my clothes, and my style would just be completely different because I wanted to feel like a different person. I’m more grown up now and my style has changed, but I still transform from day to day. There’s a lot of pressure in the world to look a certain way and I think people try to keep up all the time. I’m not really into that. When I’m zigging, I like to zag later.”
A woman of constant reinvention, she changes her watches as often as she switches her stage personalities, her current favourite being the decidedly feminine Clair de Rose. “I think it’s a beautiful watch,” she says. “It’s pretty and elegant. I have tiny wrists and it’s nice being able to wear a watch that fits me.”
As to whether she wears a wristwatch for fashion or practical use, Gaga definitely leans towards the former, saying: “Tudor gave me a wide variety of watches for all sexual identities. I experiment with stacking them and wearing multiple watches together. It might seem silly to some, but I think it’s quite fun and daring to wear several watches that all tell the same time at once.”
When it comes to why she feels the need to keep reinventing herself, her answer is reminiscent of Tudor’s when it is asked why the brand continually redesigns and refines.
“I reinvent myself because I like to,” she says. “It challenges me. I’ve asked myself recently, ‘ Why do you always have to make something new? Why can’t you just relax?’ And the answer is, ‘I don’t know’. The reward is in the creative process – and that’s also something that Tudor loves, being innovative and different but also honouring its heritage as a brand.” Despite being fiercely proud of her music, Gaga insists that she would rather people remember her for speaking out. “I think that if you become a big star, you have a duty to use your voice for good, to inspire young people to be brave, to have a purpose in the world that goes beyond their beauty or being loved for having lots of [social media] followers,” she says. To this end, she and her mother Cynthia established the Born This Way Foundation in 2011 with the aim of inspiring young people to create a “braver, kinder world”. Her musical heroes, too, have all used their fame to do good: she points to Elton John, who became a superstar and then “changed the game” with his AIDS Foundation, and her sometimes musical collaborator Tony Bennett who was very vocal during the Civil Rights movement. “This is a guy that broke the rules,” she says about the latter. “That’s part of being daring, breaking some rules, but breaking them for the right reasons.” And this, according to Gaga, is why she is proud to work with Tudor. “This is one of the very first times that I’ve not had any creative pushback from a company. They tell me, ‘ We want you to be who you are, to be daring’.” Again, she references her initial Tudor campaign. “If I’m not artistically fulfilled by a collaboration and I don’t believe in what it stands for, then there’s no point. Working with Tudor is working with people who don’t try to change me to sell their product, which is unique. The brand is a rarity, a diamond.” tudorwatch.com