Artavaganza | blog!: The perfect love triangle – pop culture, art and design. Madonna, Ritts, Gaultier

We can say that Madonna is one of the most recognizable pop culture icons. She’s controversial, provocative and glamorous. She knows the importance of her image and style, and she knows how to use it perfectly. During her whole career, she has been dynamically changing her artistic and stage faces, using fashion, art and design to play with her image in many ways and styles.

Madonna by Herb Ritts | source: http://madonnascrapbook.tumblr.com/post/26619804062/lady-madonna-a-change-of-face-1986-herb-ritts

What’s most interesting in Madonna’s way of creating her own image is her cultural and media sense. She has always understood the professional way of thinking and creating. Madonna always aims to cooperate with great professionals and outstanding artists – and that may be her biggest secret.

Madonna by Herb Ritts | source: http://www.fanpop.com/spots/madonna/images/25387222/title/madonna-herb-ritts-session-photo

Probably, the most recognizable, and – at the same time – outstanding of Madonna’s images was the one she invented during the 80’s. There were many reasons why that creation was so successful, but two of all those aspects were the most important of all – photography and fashion.

Madonna by Herb Ritts | source: http://madonnasuperstarqueen.blogspot.com/2010/02/1986-madonna-by-herb-ritts-for-true.html

In the middle of the 80’s, Madonna met one of the most talented fashion photographers – Herb Ritts. Ritts is most known from his black-and-white artistic photography. They met working together on Desperately Seeking Susan movie poster photo. That poster was a hit, and turned out to be the beginning of a long and successful cooperation between Madonna and Herb Ritts, which lasted until Ritts’s death in 2002. The result of that cooperation were the most iconic and famous pictures of Madonna.

Madonna by Herb Ritts | source: http://shawnkent.net/photographic-masters-herb-ritts/

Madonna by Herb Ritts | source: http://www.luxist.com/photos/swann-photo-auction/786481/

Madonna by Herb Ritts | source: http://dameonline.blogspot.com/2008/03/madonna.html

By the end of the 80’s, Madonna was preparing for the Blond Ambition Tour. Doing that, she had precisely outlined the character and style of that show. There was one person who could help her to make the idea real – Jean Paul Gaultier, a young and eccentric fashion designer. Madonna wanted Gaultier to be in charge of Blond Ambition Tour costume designs. And that’s how the pinstripe suit and the feminine corsetry became so characteristic for Madonna’s image. One of the objects – the conical, gold, satin bra designed by Jean-Paul Gaultier for Madonna’s Blond Ambition Tour, became an icon in fashion and pop culture. The scandalous, provocative and eccentric designs made Madonna the icon herself, as she is now called.


Madonna's corsetry designed by Jean Paul Gaultier \| source: http://www.complex.com/art-design/2012/06/madonnas-iconic-corset-by-jean-paul-gaultier-at-the-de-young-museum

Jean Paul Gaultier's fashion design sketches for Madonna's Blond Ambition Tour | source: http://www.ultimatemadonna.com/blondambition/

That fabulous triangle was a perfect match of pop culture, art and design. We can see that especially in the pictures of Madonna and Jean Paul Gautier, taken by Herb Ritts.