Nevertheless, after some wheedling, I manage to ascertain that Gucci will likely pick up at the dawn of the 1970s, when Patrizia (who grew up poor in Vignola, Northern Italy, but whose fortunes changed thanks to a new stepfather’s money, made in the trucking industry), first met Maurizio Gucci on the Milanese party scene. She says she “trusts” him fully and out of “respect” doesn’t want to give away too much of its scope. When we meet, Ridley Scott has not even permitted Gaga to see a cut. Unusually this late in the game, the film itself remains blanketed in secrecy. “Meaning that nobody was going to tell me who Patrizia Gucci was,” she says, flatly. “You know,” she replies, “I only felt that I could truly do this story justice if I approached it with the eye of a curious woman who was interested in possessing a journalistic spirit so that I could read between the lines of what was happening in the film’s scenes.” She seems keen to ensure she is being crystal clear. She is reportedly pleased such a marquee name is to play her, although – self-aggrandisement undimmed by having served 18 years of a 26-year prison sentence for having her ex-husband killed – told an Italian journalist earlier this summer, “I am quite annoyed by the fact that Lady Gaga is playing me in the new Ridley Scott film without even having the foresight and sensitivity to come and meet me.”) (Reggiani, it should be noted, is still very much alive, residing in Milan and perfectly capable of talking to the press herself. Gaga says that had life not gone the way of meat dresses and stadium tours, she might have liked to be a reporter, and it was an artist-cum-journalist’s approach that she took to piecing together Reggiani for herself. If something wasn’t beautiful, I deleted it.” I noticed that Patrizia loved beautiful things. I have no evidence that Patrizia was a photographer, but I thought as an exercise, and finding her interests in life, that I would become a photographer, so I took my point-and-shoot camera everywhere that I went. “I instantly had to dye my hair, and I started to live in a way whereby anything that I looked at, anything that I touched, I started to take notice of where and when I could see money. “It was nearly impossible for me to speak in the accent as a blonde,” she continues. “Let’s make magic!” she says by way of hello. Already photographs taken moments ago of her short walk from her car into the building in 9in heels are pinging around the world. It is a curious experience to encounter a pop culture legend giving you her most quintessential vibe, and Gaga has not disappointed. Naturally, 10 minutes comes and goes, but eventually, at an indeterminate point in superstar time, the door finally opens and through it emerges a 5ft 2in figure dressed in a long black summer-knit dress and impossibly high black leather platforms. “Let’s start her in something fabulous,” says Edward Enninful, British Vogue’s editor-in-chief, as if there were any other option. We are here for Lady Gaga’s Vogue fitting, of course. I even spot some Elizabethan-style ruffs. “She’s 10 minutes out,” says a handsome security person, popping his head around the door, as a phalanx of assistants move silently about a fabulous, temporary, shimmering grotto of couture.įreshly delivered from the shows in Paris and Venice, there are rails of Valentino silks in electric amethyst and fuchsia, inky black Schiaparelli velvet bracketed by gleaming gold, serious Chanel brocade, polar-white Louis Vuitton knits, headpieces fashioned from metal, leather and feathers, a hundred pairs of heels in every height, and table upon table of rainbow scarves, gloves and jewels. In a windowless studio in Chelsea, Manhattan, the pink marabou trim on an ankle boot is fluttering expectantly in the breeze from an electric fan.