INTO THE GROOVE

ONE OF THE GREATEST

ICON

Madonna, 1990
Photographer: Jean Baptiste Mondino

BEAUTY QUEEN

The Gold Standard. Legendary. Elegant. Innovative. The most influential makeup artist in the world by Vogue magazine. Pat McGrath was born and raised in Northampton, England. One of the most creative makeup artists of her generation, McGrath began her career in 1990 after completing an art foundation course at Northampton College, and said she “grew up living and breathing fashion in a compulsively creative family”.

• While she had no formal makeup training, her career breakthrough came while working on i-D magazine in the early Nineties.

• Since then she has worked with all the world’s top fashion photographers, designers and models.

• During the Nineties she spent ten seasons creating the makeup concepts for Prada and Miu Miu and in 1999 was asked by Giorgio Armani to design his cosmetics line.

• In 2004 she was named global cosmetics creative design director for Procter&Gamble, the name behind makeup brands including Max Factor, Dolce & Gabbana, CoverGirl and SK-II.

• She regularly collaborates on major fashion advertising campaigns such as Louis Vuitton, Prada, Lanvin, Calvin Klein and Balenciaga, and her editorial work includes regular shoots with Vogue Italia and American Vogue.

• She is also Beauty Director of i-D magazine and dispenses her knowledge in the expert advice pages of Allure.

• In a Vogue article in 2007 she was named the most influential makeup artist in the world and has worked with celebrities as diverse as Madonna, Sarah Jessica Parker, Cate Blanchett and Oprah Winfrey.

• Despite creating the makeup for a plethora of shows and campaigns each season, McGrath remains inspired, “I’m influenced a lot by the fabrics I see, the colours that are in the collections and the girl’s faces. It’s always a challenge but that’s the key – to make it different every time.”

STRIKE A POSE

Madonna
Magazine: Vogue Paris, October 1993
Photographer: Ellen von Unwerth

LOVE AFFAIR

LOVE IS A BIRD

Madonna
Photographer: Steven Klein
Re-Invention Tour Book

HAS TO BE

The music video for “The Power of Goodbye” was directed by Matthew Rolston, and was filmed from August 8–10, 1998 at Silvertop House in Los Angeles, California and Malibu Beach. The video shows Madonna and her lover playing chess and ultimately Madonna destroying the chess board, symbolizing an end to their relationship. Madonna also goes walking by the sea, but it is unclear whether she drowns herself in the last scene.

The video created some controversy due to its ending. It is debatable, but many Madonna’s fans believe she commits suicide at the end of the video, drowning herself in the ocean. Just before the music video ends, Madonna is shown on the beach again, happier than before. Therefore, the drowning of her character may represent the element water, which represents rebirth. The use of water-images – as well as the use of the other three elements – was an important part of the album, with the theme appearing in songs, such as “Swim”.

BEAT GOES ON

The Sticky & Sweet Tour was the eighth worldwide concert tour by Madonna to promote her eleventh studio album, Hard Candy. It began in August 2008 and was Madonna’s first tour from her new recording and business deal with Live Nation. After the tour concluded in 2008, Madonna announced plans of playing a second European leg in 2009 to play in territories she either had never been to or had not played for a long time.

The tour was described as a “rock driven dancetastic journey”. It was divided into four acts: Pimp, where S&M was the main theme, Old School where Madonna’s classic songs were performed, while displaying work of deceased artist Keith Haring, Gypsy, a fusion of Romanian folk music and dance, with the performances ranging from melancholy to joyous, and Rave, where she performed eastern influences.

The Sticky & Sweet Tour broke many records in terms of its ticket sales, commercial gross and audience attendance. After the first leg, it became the highest grossing tour by a solo artist, earning $282 million, breaking the previous record Madonna herself held with her Confessions Tour. Overall, Madonna performed to over 3.5 million fans in 32 countries, grossing a total of US$408 million, making it also the fourth highest grossing tour of all time.

HOLIDAY, CELEBRATION

You must be my lucky star. ‘Cause you shine on me wherever you are.
Happy Birthday, Madonna!

TRUE LOVE

Happy 25th Anniversary, True Blue!

Released on June 30, 1986. Top selling album of 1986 and reached Number 1 in 28 countries – an unprecedented achievement at the time. It has become one of the best selling albums in history, selling 24 million copies worldwide. Five singles were released from the album: “Live to Tell”, “Papa Don’t Preach”, “Open Your Heart”, which went on to top the Billboard Hot 100 chart as well as “True Blue” and “La Isla Bonita”, which reached the top-five.

The summer album of not only 1986 but 1987, as well.

VIVA VERSACE

In 1995 Gianni Versace asked Madonna to appear in a series of portraits wearing his winter couture collection. Madonna was the first major star to specify Testino as her photographer of choice and this was to be the first set of his fashion photographs to cross the frontier into portraiture of an established icon.

Known as an artist who constantly re-invents herself the Madonna commission proved to be a new kind of challenge. “I could not just walk in and tell her what I wanted to do. She had always controlled her own image. But I thought that if she had asked for me she wanted my way of seeing her. This gave me the confidence to convince her that she should appear very naturally. I had got to the point in my work where I could only really like a photograph of someone if I could feel that the image had an intense reality; that you actually sense the real life of the person. The first time I met Madonna I was struck by how beautiful she was in herself, not relying on the theatricality of her stage persona. It has been the longest collaboration that I have had with an artist of her standing. I was told that it would change my life to photograph Madonna. I did not realize to what extent.”

It made quite an impact. “I was a no one. Who is this Testino? Until then the only photographers known only by their surnames were Newton, Avedon and Bailey. It did change the way people saw me. I became a brand.”

Versace headlined the pictures. Versace presents Madonna by Testino. Until that point Testino’s work had only been recognized within the fashion world. The Madonna pictures changed that overnight.

SWIM

LA CICCONE

Madonna
Magazine: Vanity Fair, January 1997
Photographer: Herb Ritts

SHINE YOUR LIGHT NOW

“Hollywood” is a song written and performed by Madonna. It was the second single release from her 2003 studio album American Life on July 3, 2003. Madonna performed the song on the 2003 American Life Promo Tour and it was later used as a dancers interlude on the 2004 Re-Invention World Tour using a variation of the Jacques Lu Cont remix. The song was later included on the 2009 greatest hits album, Celebration.

The music video for “Hollywood” was filmed on June 2 and 3, 2003 at Universal Studios in Universal City, California and directed by Jean-Baptiste Mondino, who worked with Madonna in her videos for “Open Your Heart”, “Justify My Love”, “Human Nature”, “Love Don’t Live Here Anymore” and “Don’t Tell Me”.

LIKE A GEISHA

Madonna
Magazine: Harper’s Bazaar, February 1999
Photographer: Patrick Demarchelier

I FEEL IT, IT’S COMING

The video, directed by Mark Romanek, was filmed from May 16–19, 1993 at a Santa Monica Airport hangar in Santa Monica, California. Romanek and Madonna set the video to look like Ryuichi Sakamoto was directing it, giving it a backstage feel. It was entirely shot in black and white and then digitally colored with the blue tones. The video begins with Madonna in a studio, lying on a sofa with headphones on her ears composing a song, following a sequence in which she sings in front of a microphone, which is alternated with those of her receiving instructions from the director (played by Ryuichi Sakamoto). She then appears in front of a different background and different sets of lights representing the sky. The video ends with an air view of open umbrellas covering the entire floor. The video won two MTV Video Music Awards for Best Art Direction and Best Cinematography. On Slant Magazine’s “100 Greatest Music Videos” list, it was ranked #70.

BURNING UP

Madonna
Magazine: Pop Magazine, March 2002
Photographer: Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott

GENERATIONS OF LOVE

The campaign film for Miu Miu’s Fall/Winter 2010 collection stars models Lindsey Wixson, Siri Tollerød, Ginta Lapina, and Daphne Groeneveld, all decked out in the lust-have embellished dresses that have caused such a stir paired with kitten heels, patent bags and matching eye shadow. The girls laugh, play and throw shapes to some bass-heavy dance music backed by strobe lights. Some of the moves are pretty transparently Madonna-inspired – she was on set giving them tips. Apparently Madonna rocked up onto the set of the Miu Miu campaign shoot to meet photographers Mert Atlas and Marcus Pigott and take them for dinner. But she got distracted and ended up directing the video instead. Ginta Lapina told Love magazine, ‘We were supposed to shoot a video, so Madonna said she wanted to direct it. They said she could do it but they weren’t going to pay her and she started laughing. She put on her iPod and taught us moves and we shot the video for two hours.’

DON’T CRY FOR ME ARGENTINA

Evita is the 1996 American film adaptation of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical of the same name based on the life of Eva Perón. It was directed by Alan Parker and starred Madonna, Antonio Banderas, and Jonathan Pryce. It was released on December 25, 1996 by Hollywood Pictures and Cinergi Pictures.

The film received a warm reception from many critics. It was nominated for five Academy Awards and won the award for “Best Original Song” – “You Must Love Me”. Evita had five Golden Globe nominations and three wins (Best Picture – Comedy or Musical; Best Original Song, “You Must Love Me”; and Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical, Madonna) and was one of the National Board of Review’s Top Ten Films of the Year.

The film earned Madonna a Guinness World Record title, “Most costume changes in a film”. The record was previously held by Elizabeth Taylor for the 1963 film Cleopatra (65 costume changes). In Evita, Madonna changed costumes 85 times (which included 39 hats, 45 pairs of shoes and 56 pairs of earrings).