Fotini has kept a $4000 secret from her husband all year. That ends this weekend

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“My husband’s going to see this… sorry, Christopher,” Fotini Koklas laughs, interrupting herself as she recites the laundry list of goods and services she’s paid for in the lead-up to Lady Gaga’s first show on Australian shores in 11 years.

Fake tan. Fake lashes. Fake nails. Four wigs panic-purchased this week in case the one she already had wasn’t good enough. Heel-less Giuseppe Zanotti platform shoes from Italy, bought for €2000 ($4817) after a months-long search (to be fair, those were acquired circa 2012, after Gaga wore the style in her Marry the Night music video).

Koklas’ dress is inspired by Gaga’s The Fame (2008) era.

Koklas’ husband already knows the 40-year-old super-fan has spent the past eight months pulling together a custom outfit for The MAYHEM Ball’s opening show at Marvel Stadium on Friday night.

She couldn’t have hidden that if she wanted to. Twelve hours a day at the sewing machine, cutting fabric and gluing mini mirror tiles onto flared triangular panels for a Haus of Gaga-inspired dress, is obvious when it’s been happening in your living room every weekend since Gaga’s Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney tour dates were confirmed in April.

Koklas spent months tracking down these heel-less Giuseppe Zanotti platform shoes.

What isn’t so obvious to him – and covered up with white lies by way of references to fast-fashion giants Shein and Temu – is Koklas spending an estimated $4000 on her ensemble. Not including the designer shoes. Nor her ticket.

“When I put that wig on, when I have the make-up on and the dress and the shoes, I become someone else. I’m not Fotini, I am just someone else,” says Koklas. And wearing jeans and a T-shirt is out of the question. “It’s the only time I get to dress up and go out without being judged.”

Art fosters empathy, says Liz Giuffre, an associate professor of media at the University of Technology, Sydney. But pop music holds a particular weight because it’s everywhere – supermarkets, restaurants, gyms.

“It’s such a powerful thing … think about people who are literally sitting on their own in their darkest times, and they hear a pop song, they hear an experience, and they think, ‘I’m not the only person who’s ever felt this way,’” says Giuffre.

Gaga’s debut album, The Fame (2008), was revolutionary for 36-year-old Andrew (last name withheld for privacy), who performs under the drag persona Pussay Poppins. It wasn’t just the exploration of celebrity and identity through techno-rock-dance pop that captivated the then-teen from rural NSW – it was also Gaga’s avant-garde persona and approach to performing.

Growing up with his conservative Lebanese family, Andrew (surname withheld for privacy) thought he was the only queer person in his small town of 11,000. The only queer representation Andrew saw was Mark Trevorrow’s Bob Downe, Barry Humphries’ Dame Edna Everage and Carson Kressley on television. But he “didn’t see myself in those characters”.

An episode of Network 10’s Rove Live in September 2008, when Gaga performed seminal single Just Dance, changed everything.

“She had video glasses with a light-up disco stick ... she combined art and fashion and pop music and everything I was really into, into one performance,” says Andrew. “The more I started investigating and hearing her music, it resonated with me.”

Gaga, who is openly bisexual, cemented herself as a safe space for the LGBTQIA+ community with Born This Way (2011) – thanks to the album itself and its press tour. (“There was a rumour that you had a male appendage. That you were a hermaphrodite,” Anderson Cooper asked Gaga in an interview for the United States’ 60 Minutes. “Maybe I do. Would it be so terrible?” she replied.)

“She spoke to young people who felt [like outcasts] directly and said, ‘It’s OK to be different,’” says Dr Kat Nelligan, a proud Gamilaraay woman and lecturer at RMIT University with a PhD in popular music studies.

Nelligan authored Brand Lady Gaga (2025), and says a key part of Gaga’s early career was sending the message that self-love and self-acceptance are “really important values”.

Newcastle hair salon owner Jarrod Layer, 31, took inspiration from the costume Gaga wears to open The MAYHEM Ball for his own outfit.

“She offered people who felt out of place … she said ‘you belong here,’” says Nelligan.

But her advocacy is only partly why fans are happy to shell out $1588 – or turn to buy now, pay later services – for a “priceless experience” package that gets you a Q&A with Gaga’s crew member.

The costume debuted at Coachella in April and was designed by Taiwanese-Australian fashion designer Samuel Lewis.

That her shows are living, breathing works of art is why Andrew is flying from Hobart, where he now lives, to attend all five MAYHEM concerts on the mainland. He has spent $60,000 to attend 17 Gaga performances over the years, and has met her seven times.

“It’s been pretty cooked … oh my God, it’s nearly like a mini house deposit, a small car,” he laughs.

Perth woman Katie Sparks spent hours making her costume for Gaga’s first Australian concert in Melbourne.

Gaga’s creativity is what reeled 31-year-old Newcastle hair salon owner Jarrod Layer into the Emmy-, Grammy-, and Oscar-winning artist’s orbit. He’s been to every Australian tour, has flown to see Gaga perform overseas and has paid $1000 to watch her second Sydney show from a corporate box.

But the real sign of his dedication is the 250 hours over which he crafted his Samuel Lewis-inspired outfit, mostly spent applying at least 80,000 rhinestones to the all-red ensemble.

Andrew has met Lady Gaga seven times over the years.

“Her edge to push everything that touch further – it always really spoke to me,” says Layer.

Perth woman Katie Sparks, 26, has been a fan of Gaga’s since she was nine years old. She’s seen her three times and has spent $3000 to attend Melbourne’s first show – there are no shows in the WA capital.

But her journey really started six weeks ago, when Sparks began her 40 hour-epic to sew her costume.

“I’m aiming to be on the barricade,” says Sparks. “She does come down the barricade, so I’m hoping if I dress up in a really cool costume, she’ll notice me a little bit.”

That’s how Andrew met Gaga at 2012’s The Born This Way Ball. He camped outside Perth’s Burswood Dome overnight to get a leg-up in the first come, first served general admission race. It worked – he made it to the front row. Gaga saw his jacket, took it and invited him backstage.

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