In her first column for V magazine, Lady Gaga devotes her space to musing about Yves Saint Laurent's Mondrian dress. When the designer unveiled a dress in 1995 derived from Piet Mondrian's iconic artwork it spawned a "generation" of imitation designs, she explained. So, did Laurent "plagiarize or revolutionize"?

Here's the point of Gaga's anecdote: she's like Yves Saint Laurent--a revolutionary clearing a new path by appropriating the best of all the pop stars before her. That it takes her so long to explain this could be a reason why her readers/reviewers seemed to pan her article.

Mostly though, her critics disliked how much name-dropping and posturing Gaga does. "It reads like a nonsensical defense of all the criticisms" leveled against her, figured New York's Amy Odell. She writes "like a 14 year-old with an inferiority complex and a Wikipedia login," panned Gawker's Brian Moylan. Here's what they mean, by way of a passage in which she references her egg costume:

After meandering through the egg discussion she eventually winds her way back to who her "Mondrians" are. Yes, she lists David Bowie, Michael Jackson, Cindy Crawford, Prince, Madonna and other obvious touchstones. But here's the most revealing line:

Specifically: "In a lot of ways the 'idea' of being obsessed with art is my Mondrian," she admits candidly (emphasis ours). That could be a good fodder for her second column.

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Erik Hayden