Fashion Editor Nicole Clinton charts the changing looks of Madonna during her first decade of stardom, as seen in the music videos of her 1990 greatest hits album ‘The Immaculate Collection’.*
When Madonna first burst onto the scene in 1983, music executives believed that her sexualised image would predominantly appeal to men. However, it was the ladies who popularised the pop star as she became the poster girl for women’s liberation and empowerment during the eighties era. A new style icon, Madonna had girls adding bangles and bows to all sorts of combinations. The music videos that accompany the playlist of her 1990 Greatest Hits collection perfectly display the changing image of Madonna and allow us to observe the origins of her status as the queen of reinvention.
In the queen of pop’s first proper music video, Lucky Star, the songstress’ image is slowly unwrapped for us, along to the electronic eighties intro, as she gradually lowers her huge sunglasses. The messy, peroxide hair appropriately complimented the “mix ‘em, gather ‘em”/anything goes style that took over the mid eighties and later influenced acts such as Ke$ha, The Pussycat Dolls and Little Mix. She dons a black, tutu-esque skirt, a black, netted top and heaps of accessories in the video. This same miscellaneous style is apparent in the Borderline video, which sees her flaunting lime green shoes and luminous yellow socks to play pool in a smoke-filled room. This video also features a stylised black and white photo-shoot that epitomised eighties anti-establishment, underground culture and has the pop-star spraying graffiti on a car while posing in a leather jacket and a beret with a signature oversize bow sown on.
Next we come to the legendary Like a Virgin, whose lyrics, video and subsequent performances established Madonna’s image as a controversial artist. The video oozed sensuality in a way that confused and shocked the world. It saw her turning symbols that had previously been regarded as safe and honourable into dangerous concepts, a tendency that she would repeatedly exude in future videos. For example, she rolls around the floor in a wedding dress and accessorises a tight, blue lycra pants with a pair of Rosary beads. In this way, it was the costume that was associated with the song that made it so infamous. The notion that Madonna, a beacon of promiscuity, was wearing a symbol of decency and virtue like a wedding dress offended people simply by messing with tradition. This fusing of contrasting symbols could be seen to reflect the changing attitudes to sexuality that occurred during the 1980’s all over the world.
The Material Girl video takes inspiration from the Hollywood star system and sees Madge channel the original blonde bombshell, Marilyn Monroe. In one of her most glamorous music videos, she appears decked out in a pink satin dress, long gloves and diamonds, a costume identical to the one worn by Monroe during her performance of ‘Diamonds are a girl’s best friend’ in her film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. The extravagant outfit and accessories embody the message that the song expresses and reflects the capitalist culture of 1980’s America.
La Isla Bonita’s video reflects the Latin vibes of the track by being set in an old fashioned Spanish village. The popstar spends the first half of the video in a light plain slip and close-cut dark hair, praying and peeking out the window. The presence of rosary beads broaches the idea of Catholicism again, presumably a prevalent piece of the Italian-American’s youth, and also suggests that the subdued look could represent the oppressing nature that the church may have represented for her and many others. However, she escapes this repression in the second half of the video as she changes into a red and black, traditional Spanish dress. The exuberant, ruffled creation releases an alternate persona and sees her mood and behaviour radically change as she dances down the stairs and out into the street to join the other inhabitants of the village in their musical celebration. The red tone embodies the new sensual expression of the character as she answers the musical call that one of her neighbours’ classical guitar makes to her. Therefore, this video portrays the power of dress to convey or transform a mood or state of mind and especially, the narrative power of costume to allow the viewer to understand the message that the imagery is sending.
Twenty years before Lady Gaga even stepped on the music scene, Madonna was the original pop-star to play on religion to controversial effect (even the stage name she chose displays this). While she may have verged on it in Like a Virgin, that was only foreplay compared to the Like a Prayer video. The styling is simple, a black calf-length fitted dress and a new dark, curly hair-do, with the intention of emphasising the notorious use of religious symbolism that occurs. However, the Vogue video does not hold back in the fashion stakes. Unsurprisingly, the video for a song that has the same name as THE fashion magazine launched a trend or two. The slick, black and white video marked the beginning of the oversized suit’s nineties reign and seeped stylised visuals.
It is interesting to note that the time of Madonna’s introduction into the world of music aligns with the birth of MTV and one could question whether she would have left such a mark on the music industry if she hadn’t used music videos to inflate her fame and notoriety. In less than ten years of music videos, Madonna managed to use clothes, symbols and imagery to create various images for herself. From Lucky Star’s random combinations to Like a Virgin’s tradition-busting to Vogue’s unapologetic vanity, she was constantly evolving. And if you look at the videos closely, you can see the world changing with her.
*This article was originally published during my time as fashion editor of The UCC Express.
The Vagabond Quarters 