For Lady Gaga’s ArtRave: The ARTPOP Ball world tour, Vex designed and built custom inflatable latex pieces for Gaga and her dancers — wearable sculpture engineered to perform under arena lighting, night after night, across continents.
The ArtRave: The ARTPOP Ball was not a concert. It was a full-scale art installation that happened to travel the world. When Gaga’s production team needed custom inflatable pieces that could function as both wearable garments and visual spectacle under arena conditions, they came to Vex.
This was not off-the-shelf work. Every inflatable was designed from scratch in the Vex California studio — conceived as wearable sculpture that had to hold its form, its shape, and its visual impact across dozens of tour dates, under the specific lighting rigs and choreography of each show.
A touring production is the hardest environment a garment will ever face. The same piece has to perform perfectly in a different arena every night, in different climates, under different conditions — for months.
Touring puts demands on garments and props that studio work never does. The inflatables Vex built for ArtRave had to inflate consistently, hold their sculptural form under stage lighting, withstand the physical intensity of live choreography, and survive the reality of being packed, transported, and unpacked across a global tour schedule. Every material choice, every seam, every structural decision was made with that reality in mind.
The custom work for ArtRave was not limited to Gaga herself. Vex built inflatable pieces for her dancers as well — pieces that had to accommodate intense choreography while maintaining the surreal, sculptural aesthetic the tour demanded. When multiple performers are wearing custom inflatables on stage simultaneously, every piece has to be consistent in construction quality, inflation behavior, and visual impact. There is no room for variation.
Each dancer’s piece was built to their measurements and engineered around the specific movements the choreography required. This is the difference between a costume and a Vex commission — the garment is designed around the performance, not the other way around.
Inflatable garments and stage pieces are among the most technically demanding commissions Vex takes on. They require an understanding of material behavior under air pressure, structural engineering at the seam level, and a clear-eyed assessment of what the piece will actually face on stage. The margin for error is zero — an inflatable that fails mid-performance is visible to every person in the arena.
Every seam is engineered to hold air pressure while allowing natural movement. The inflatable must maintain its sculptural form throughout an entire performance.
Built to survive months of nightly use, packing, transport, and unpacking across a global tour schedule. No fragile gallery pieces — these are working stage garments.
Designed around the specific movements each performer executes. The inflatable enhances the visual without restricting the physical performance.
Proportioned and finished to read from the back row of an arena and hold up under high-definition camera close-ups simultaneously.
When the production is this visible and the stakes are this high, there is no substitute for handmade precision. That is why they call Vex.
Lady Gaga joins a roster of artists who have worn custom Vex on the world’s biggest stages — from Beyoncé and Katy Perry to Paris Hilton and Ciara. Whether the commission is latex leggings for a halftime performance or inflatable sculpture for a world tour, every piece is built by hand in the same California studio, by the same small team, to the same uncompromising standard.
Whether you are a production team building a tour wardrobe, a stylist pulling for a global stage, or an artist with a vision that requires custom fabrication — Vex custom design starts with a conversation.
Start a Custom Design Browse the Collection Latex Care Essentials26 years of handmade latex for the world’s biggest stages. Tell us what you need — we will build it.
Start Your Custom Project Email sales@vexclothing.com
