You know you are in for something big when the public relations person asks repeatedly: 'Are you ready? Is everyone ready? She's coming in any moment now' - the way one would when dealing with royalty.
Within minutes, American pop princess Lady Gaga strides into the fourth-floor function room at the Mandarin Oriental hotel, which has been converted into a changing room for the day.
The star swirls a mid-day glass of white wine as an entourage of six, made up of minders and local representatives from her record label Interscope/ Universal Music, trails behind her.
Lady Gaga is famed for her daring, extreme dress sense and her outfit does not disappoint: oversized shades, a studded one-armed leather toga mini dress, a matching one-armed leather jacket and the iconic cage-like leather booties from Yves Saint Laurent's spring/summer 2009 collection.
In town two weeks ago to launch SingTel AMPed, a new music subscription service by the local telco, the 23-year-old singer met Urban for an exclusive fashion shoot in which she would style herself.
She is quick to take things into her own hands.
Yakking away on her mobile phone the way teenage girls do to their gal pals, she is oblivious to everyone around her and zeroes in on a rack of clothes at the end of the room.
Seconds later, she is off the line and says - to no one in particular - in her New York drawl: 'I'm so excited about this shoot.'
Like a child in a candy store, she begins pulling pieces off the rack - a YSL cocktail dress embellished with chains, a Fendi laser-cut lace skirt - while exclaiming, 'I like this' or 'I can really work this'.
Her declarations of desire turn into pleas when she sees the accessories that include Prada and Gucci boots as well as costumes from the personal collection of Bobby Luo and Ritz Lim, the wacky owners of local nightspot Butter Factory, which Urban had borrowed for the shoot.
'I want this,' she says repeatedly, even when told the items have to be returned, holding fast to the pair of lace collars that she wears on Urban's cover.
It all makes for bemused laughter - until she stares you straight in the eye and states firmly: 'I'll buy it. I don't want to have anything here for free.
'I want it. I need it.'
FASHION OBSESSION
Born Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta in New York, the singer is as known for her wardrobe as she is for her brand of 1970s-inspired dance-pop anthems - her 2008 debut album, The Fame, has sold one million copies in the United States alone.
Her typical style includes less-than- typical plastic bustiers, latex lingerie and thigh-high boots.
She has sparked a global trend of wearing oversized panties as hot pants - in Britain, sales of the granny-style undergarment have reportedly surged 25 per cent because of her.
Still, nothing quite prepares one for the fashion obsession of Lady Gaga.
'Fashion is my lifestyle,' she tells Urban in an interview before the photo shoot.
'It is my everyday. It's when I wake up, it's when I go to sleep, it's when I go to church or when I party. It's not dress-up. It's who I am.'
She takes fashion so seriously that she put together her own creative production team, Haus Of Gaga, in 2006 so that she can stay true to her 'aesthetics and philosophy about art, fashion and music'.
The six-man team is in charge of creating outfits and hairstyles for her.
'No matter how successful you get, it is important to remember why you're doing what you're doing and I want to be creative.
'Why do I want to work with (stylists) who work with everybody else?'
At the shoot, she resists wearing a gem-studded, armour-like shoulder piece because 'Madonna's worn something like it'.
When she mistakenly hears that a pair of Louis Vuitton lace panties was from fall/winter 2008, she says in a sing-song voice: 'I can't wear that because it's ooold'.
(She later dons it and even asks to buy it when told it is actually from the current season.)
The elder daughter of entrepreneur parents - she has a 17-year-old sister - is no drama diva, though.
For all her brassiness, she is also polite and friendly.
Reportedly dating a Los Angeles- based entrepreneur who goes by the name of Speedy, she has a tendency to shake your hand palm-side down as a thank you gesture and, when told the lace collars are hers for $600, shrieks: 'I love you.'
Most of all, she has a sense of humour about her over-the-top sartorial obsession, which serves to portray her as a bona fide fashion lover rather than a bratty style icon.
She calls herself the 'homeless Carrie Bradshaw of pop music' - a reference to the fashion-slave protagonist of hit American series Sex And The City - because all her earnings go into creating new outfits and props for her shows.
During her attempt to secure the collars, she dangles the striped scarf she wears as a dress on this page and says: 'If you let me buy them, I'll let you photograph me in this.'
She then adds with a cheeky grin: 'It's called fashion extortion.'
Urban finds out just how far she will take her fashion fixation.
Be warned, Gaga mania is infectious.
HIGH MEETS LOW
What exactly is Gaga style?
It's visual, graphic and avant garde combined with a handmade, New York element.
What I've got on now (on the cover) is a very good example of my aesthetics. I've got on very high-fashion (looking), haute couture-type collars paired with panties which some might consider distasteful but look closer and you will see they are from Louis Vuitton.
I've got on (my own) control-top tights that are trashy and knee-high, stripper-style boots, except that they are from Gucci and amazing.
The look is very high meets low, haute couture trash glamour.
Your outfits are very revealing. How do you keep in shape?
My shows are very rigorous so that helps me stay in shape.
I'm also on a strict diet - for most of the time, I don't eat bread at all, only vegetables and protein.
Is it a conscious effort to always look like a sex symbol?
I wouldn't call myself anything. I have always been a very sexual woman even before I was in the public eye.
It's just who I am.
How do you feel being hailed as the next Madonna?
I don't think anyone can take over from Madonna.
She is so successful because she has carved out her own space in the music and fashion industry.
She's always so unique so if anything, I admire that trait about her and hope to embody that.
I'd like to maintain a certain irrelevance, to make sure there's no one like me.
What are three items in your wardrobe that you cannot live without?
High heels and sunglasses which have been (part of my wardrobe) for a very long time.
I've also been obsessed about wigs since I dyed my hair blonde two years ago.
The minute I dyed my hair, my whole life changed. I don't think it's because I went (from brunette to) blonde - I had written Just Dance and my career took off.
But being blonde represents leaving behind my life in New York - my friends, my family, my tiny apartment and $5 sequined bras - and moving on to bigger things.
This article was first published in Urban, The Straits Times.
