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Dorinda is Bringing Back Her Iconic Lady Gaga Halloween Costume
Dorinda Medley still has a few tricks (and treats) up her sleeve for hosting the perfect Halloween soiree.
The Real Housewives of New York City alum Dorinda Medley knows how to do the holidays right. That means taking her home and "making it nice" with incredible decorations, throwing unforgettable parties, and of course, wearing show-stopping outfits that will have everybody talking — especially when it comes to Halloween.
Dorinda loves a unique Halloween costume, but that doesn't mean she can't see the value in a rewear. In fact, there’s now a special outfit tucked away at her Bluestone Manor estate any true Bravo fan will recognize: a bubble dress exactly like the one she wore for her unforgettable 2017 Halloween party. In a recent interview with The Daily Dish, Dorinda reflected on the special look she had to buy twice and that wild holiday event.
Dorinda Medley on Her Iconic Halloween Moment That Lives on "Forever"
The costume was a nod to a version of a Lady Gaga tour look, which Gaga and Andy Samberg both wore for a Saturday Night Live skit.
During Dorinda's Halloween party, as the night wore on and the bubbles from Dorinda's dress disappeared, Andy Samberg became "Adam Sandler" and SNL became "NSL" in Dorinda's retelling ... among a few other hilarious flubs.
“The famous bubble dress lives on forever,” Dorinda joked to The Daily Dish in an exclusive interview revisiting the now-beloved evening. “The great thing is none of us back then ever even knew, not just me, that we’re making this sort of almost Lucy and Ethel kind of forevermore TV.”
Dorinda then explained how the costume came to be.
“I met this guy as you can sort of verbally almost understand in the clip,” Dorinda said about her attempts to tell partygoers her dress’ backstory after an unknown number of “not nice” orange cocktails she had prepared for the party.
(Dorinda doesn't exactly have the fondest memories of the special drinks: “All I remember is the concept was great. The application was terrible.”
If you’re hoping to recreate for your own event, those cocktails were a combination of orange soda and vodka, according to Dorinda. However, she noted, taste did take a backseat to the visuals since she wanted the cocktails to look "great and bubbly.")
Dorinda then commissioned "this guy," who was a SNL costume designer who later went on to work for Sesame Street, for her ensemble.
“Literally, that wasn’t a costume,” Dorinda said. “That was me going to Bloomingdales, getting a Spanx, and having him sew plastic balls all over it, which by the way, all fell by the end of the night.”
If you rewatch RHONY Season 10, Episode 1, entitled "Ghouls Just Wanna Have Fun," you can actually catch a fellow castmate holding Dorinda's fallen bubbles after she left for the evening with her then-boyfriend, John Mahdessian.
“I was pretty much naked by the end of that scene,” Dorinda said. “Not that I cared ... between the drinks, the wigs, and the bubbles falling off, I was past worrying about that.”
While looking back at her 2017 Halloween get-together, Dorinda gave a shout out to her former castmates.
"We really were team players," Dorinda said about everyone's willingness to dress up for a party and never see anything as "too ridiculous" to take part in. "It just made for very authentic TV because I wasn't thinking, 'Oh, I need to look sexy or I've got to worry about if this falls off or I don't want to do this or I don't want to look silly.' I'm like, 'Let's give 'em some good TV.''
Dorinda Medley's Connection to Lady Gaga
Dorinda’s ode to Gaga isn’t the only connection they share. Dorinda’s daughter, Hannah Lynch, attended the same Manhattan private school growing up as the Grammy-winning artist, back when Gaga was known by her birth name, Stefani Germanotta.
“Obviously, Lady Gaga is older than Hannah, but they had mentors because it’s a Catholic school, so at one point Lady Gaga was part of her mentoring group,” Dorinda explained.
In fact, she added, she's even friends with Gaga's mother, Cynthia.
Dorinda has indeed met the singer, as evidenced by this 2015 instagram post with Gaga at the singer's 2015 Cheek to Cheek tour with the late Tony Bennett.
Dorinda Brings Back the Lady Gaga Bubble Dress Look
Though the original costume was destroyed as the night progressed (as seen in the incredibly quotable season 10 episode), Dorinda found a website selling a version of the bubbling ensemble while researching themes and searching for unusual items for the holidays. She plans to slip back into the look for her 2024 Halloween celebrations.
“I bought it,” Dorinda said, proudly providing the receipt to The Daily Dish.
Dorinda’s deep love for Halloween and dressing up her Berkshires home has sometimes led to issues, though. Her 26-foot-tall decorative blow-up pumpkin, which she calls a "town favorite," once got loose and ended up on someone else’s property.
“We had these big winds that had swooped it up and it had traveled like, across the street into someone else’s yard,” Dorinda remembered, saying the local fire department called to notify her since she was away.
“It’s so big, it took a while to deflate … so it was like this wild pumpkin that was raging through Great Barrington," she laughed.
Still, her decorations continue to draw onlookers and remain a staple in the community, Dorinda explained. School buses even stop at her gate in the morning to see the (now returned to its former glory) pumpkin.
“The day that Bluestone Manor is not decorated is the day the world cries, I think,” Dorinda said.
Dorinda Medley's 2024 Halloween Plans
This year, Dorinda is playing host to the public for a ticketed, intimate Halloween luncheon with an eerie theme: decomposition.
“The theme is what comes from nature," Dorinda said. "I have a thing called the Goddess of Corn that has emerged from the corn gardens … I’m gonna cover my tables with moss and use snails and worms and mushrooms and all this stuff that are all about decomposition.”
Her decor was crafted by a close collaborator: Lauren Talt, a floral designer who runs Tremendous Events.
Aside from the decorations, Dorinda has planned haunting things to tell the small group of attendees, explaining, “I’m gonna say, 'Look to the right and look to the left because in less than 100 years, you will be part of all this.'”
She will also host a Halloween party for a select group where everyone will be given the opportunity to dress up. The guest list is mainly her New York friends she's known for years.
“I always say do whatever you want all weekend … you don’t have to participate in anything, but on Saturday night, you must be dressed for cocktails in the Blue Room no later than 7 [p.m.],” Dorinda said about her hosting rules. “People love rising to the occasion. They look forward to it. People love to escape, be part of something that maybe doesn’t exist anymore.”
Though the "Sesame Street guy" is no longer in her contacts, Dorinda plans to take the new dress to a Brooklyn seamstress for her second act in the get-up.
“I think this time I’m gonna use some glue,” Dorinda said when asked about any possible reinforcements to keep this dress intact.
And while the original dress Dorinda wore is long gone, we can't wait to hear about the new stories that will pop up from her wearing the look again.
