Exclusive: the first look at Madonna's fragrance ad

Madonna's Truth or Dare fragrance ad has strangely leaked on two famous blog / website and I wanted to share it with you in exclusivity. Shot by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott, it it pretty much inspired by Lee Miller.

What do you think about it?

Madonna’s new fragrance is called truth or dare

For years, Madonna refused to launch her fragrance unlike many cheap stars, but she now feels time has come to release "a unique blend of narcotic florals, balanced with addictive woods and vanilla, creates a scent that is timeless, yet contemporary, simultaneously dark and light."

She also feels it's the right time to launch her own brand and she will surely cash in a lot! She says: "Over the past several years, I have been approached countless times to create my own brand. The timing is right and I have found great partners in Iconix, who can help translate my vision to reality."


Will you be buying?

Maripol 80's NY pictures: Madonna

Madonna rocking the red carpet of the 2011 MET Gala

Madonna and Basquiat - rare picture

This picture encapsulates the spirit of the 80's.

Madonna looks amazing in the May issue of Interview magazine

Madonna ad campaign for D+G, round 2

Madonna is amazingly beautiful in the new spring/summer 2010 Dolce + Gabbana campaign

  In this week's Italian Vanity Fair, is the worldwide preview of D&G's new spring/summer 2010 campaign featuring Madonna. Shot by Steven Klein, one of Madge's favourite photographers, the pictures showcase an intimate and classic Italian style. Yes Madonna is trying hard to play the Italian "mama" and the result is amazing.

In the feature, Stefano Gabbana comments: "She loved the campaign, and is impressively knowledgeable about Italian cinema". Madonna took inspiration from one of her favourite Italian actresses Monica Vitti.


The intention of Dolce&Gabbana is to recapture a woman’s human side, showcasing through these images how a woman’s femininity and sensuality can be found through the simplicity of daily gestures along with a passion for life.

What I find very striking is that Madonna is beautiful. This campaign is stronger than the Louis Vuitton or Versace campaigns, in a different way obviously. It's true that she 's beautiful ! What do you think?

More info on: http://www.madonna.com/ and http://www.dolcegabbana.com/

Madonna - Celebration

There's a lot to say about the new Madonna's single artwork. First I don't know who inspired who? Banksy or Mr Brainswash, who had the idea first?



Secondly, on the cover we see Madonna lighting a cigarette and I wonder why it hasn't been banned yet like the Coco before Chanel's poster... Any idea?

To learn more: http://www.madonna.com/

Madonna for Louis Vuitton round 2

Marc Jacobs was so pleased with this spring’s Louis Vuitton campaign featuring Madonna that he was eager to do an encore. 'But very quickly Marc said, ‘I want something completely different,’' related Antoine Arnault, Vuitton’s communication director. The new ingredients included a dash of Tamara de Lempicka and a soupçon of Man Ray for color-drenched images by Steven Meisel with a surreal edge, thanks to generous use of solarization, a technique of overexposure first perfected by Ray.

Here is the result.

To learn more: http://www.louisvuitton.com/

Madonna strikes a pose for Louis Vuitton

From the Times Online

January 3, 2009

"This was really different," explains Antoine Arnault, communications director of Louis Vuitton, when asked how Madonna came to front the company's new spring/summer campaign. "Usually, these things take much, much longer," he explains; a lengthy process of identifying the right person to embody the fashion and luxury-goods brand, the right photographer, the right look for the campaign, plus, of course, all the deal-making a project like this involves. This time, however, pretty much everything was agreed inside a week.

"On the Monday," Arnault recalls, "we had a meeting, and Marc Jacobs suggested Madonna. I thought, yes, great idea, but it will never happen. Then, in the meeting, Marc sent her a text saying, ‘Love, would you like to be the new Louis Vuitton woman?' Five minutes later, she'd replied. He showed me his phone, and she'd said, ‘Yes, I'd love to do it.'" What could be simpler ?

Clearly, when a big brand like Louis Vuitton chooses a new face for its campaign, it's not just a matter of affectionate text messages between Marc Jacobs and Madonna. Men like Louis Vuitton's CEO, Yves Carcelle, have to agree that it is a good idea, not a whim, as well as, of course, Carcelle's boss and Antoine Arnault's father, Bernard Arnault, head of the LVMH luxury-goods empire.

But as Antoine Arnault sees it, "Marc knows the brand probably better than anyone now," having been artistic director for a decade, during which time Louis Vuitton has expanded massively. Jacobs had seen Madonna in concert the week before, but it wasn't some "let's be crazy" decision, Arnault explains, citing how Jacobs had previously picked J-Lo as the face of Louis Vuitton in 2003. "That wasn't an obvious choice, perhaps, but it instantly put us on the top in the US in one campaign.



"Madonna is glamorous," Arnault continues. "She has a global image. She's the ultimate performer and businesswoman, and not someone who is just a famous singer. She has travelled; she has tried to change things." And if her personal life isn't perfect right now, "Well, that only makes her more human." Once the proposal had been made, and provisionally accepted, in both cases by text, "Then we had to agree on a figure, a concept, a photographer." Yet the whole process seems to have been plain sailing – an object lesson, if you like, in the degree of certainty that people at the top of the fashion industry tend to display about their creative choices.

The figure? Well, just how much Madonna is being paid for what is, in a sense, both one day's work and the product of many years at the top of her game is a moot point. Some have claimed it's $10 million (£6.6 million). But Arnault is careful to puncture that, saying, "The figure is really, really lower than that. In times like these, it would be totally irresponsible to pay anyone $10 million."



The concept? Madonna has been photographed in a nostalgic, Parisian bistro setting, perhaps at that "waiters whistling as the last bar closes" moment in the early hours. "Only it's in LA," Arnault quips, not Paris - "One of those French bistros in California where you really think you're in France" - and it's daytime and there are hundreds of paparazzi outside. Madonna smoulders quietly, all fishnets and high kicks, with a glamour that gives more than a nod to Dietrich, long an acknowledged influence. She's wearing Marc Jacobs' ready-to-wear clothes for Louis Vuitton, styled by Marie-Amélie Sauvé, with, of course, due prominence given to some lovely bags and shoes, those accessories that have long been such steady earners for the brand.

But there is a certain quietness to the images, a kind of gentleness, perhaps, which might also (along with that willingly professed prudence over Madonna's fee) be a sign of the extraordinary times we live in. Certainly, when I put it to Arnault that the crunch might be changing the aesthetic and that, in particular, a certain kind of flash advertising message now looks passé, even wrong somehow, he doesn't exactly demur. "Other people can try to rationalise every campaign, but there is certainly a feeling that emerges from designers, photographers, creatives of all kinds, which is maybe something they don't talk about, but which they can feel."

The photographer in question here is Steven Meisel, rather than Mert and Marcus, who have shot all of Louis Vuitton's campaigns since 2002, including those amazingly effective shots of J-Lo. "We were very happy with them," Arnault insists, but all good things come to an end – and, after all, it was Meisel who photographed the wilder, younger, more in-your-face Madonna who leapt off the pages of Sex, the book which caused such a storm back in 1992. So this campaign can be seen as something of a reunion, Meisel additionally having photographed Madonna for Vanity Fair late last year. Jacobs and Meisel are old friends, too, Arnault explains, "from the crazy years of the Eighties".



And once Antoine Arnault had assembled his dream team? "I think the three of them were in touch with each other on the phone almost every day," he says of the run-up to the shoot, “talking about ideas, sharing references, then talking about individual shots." On the big day itself, "About 50 people were on the set, which sounds like a lot, but it's all in the preparation, in the make-up and the set and so on. Once that was in place, Madonna would come out, get into position, and the shots went amazingly quickly, sometimes in about 15 minutes. It was a delight."

Pure style: MTV Vogue Madonna

Greta Garbo, and Monroe
Deitrich and DiMaggio
Marlon Brando, Jimmy Dean
On the cover of a magazine

Grace Kelly; Harlow, Jean
Picture of a beauty queen
Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire
Ginger Rodgers, dance on air

They had style, they had grace
Rita Hayworth gave good face
Lauren, Katherine, Lana too
Bette Davis, we love you

Ladies with an attitude
Fellows that were in the mood
Don't just stand there, let's get to it
Strike a pose, there's nothing to it

Pure style: Madonna - Give It 2 Me

Vanity Fair Portraits: Photographs 1913-2008

Dafydd Jones, Mick Jagger, Madonna and Tony Curtis, 1997

Vanity Fair Portraits: Photographs 1913-2008 at the National Portrait Gallery in London:


This exhibition of about 150 portraits taken for Vanity Fair includes such subjects as Albert Einstein, Charlie Chaplin and Jean Harlow published during the magazine's first incarnation from 1913-36, and Madonna, President Reagan and Scarlett Johansson published since its relaunch in 1983. It includes works by Edward Steichen, Annie Leibovitz and Mario Testino. The show is sponsored by Burberry. Above right, Dafydd Jones, Mick Jagger, Madonna and Tony Curtis, 1997.


To learn more: www.npg.org.uk

Kate Moss = Fashion and must have

While Madonna held her collection for H&M, we will still have to wait months to discover the collection of Kate Moss for Topshop.


While waiting, one can visit the site of the English shop company which puts on line mini-documentary on the "model-star apprentice-designer". The podcast, taken again on youtube was filmed during a working session of the model in the Topshop workshops.


Classy as hell, Kate Moss is obviously having fun and does not hesitate to deliver her opinion or to comment on the models. We also learn that some from the 80's clothes : jean, jackets, bags… were/are the starting points of the collection.


Seen in the English Vogue of April, the first parts shows cool models easy to wear, glam and very inspired of the Seventies. A perfect collection for holidays.
Costumes shorts, flowered dresses, printed trousers and stripes are fixed under hat...


Four annual collections are provided by a two year old contract that the English rumour estimates at 3 million pounds. The date of launching may be on May 1 in England. In Paris, it is the following day, at Colette, that we will be able to discover it, right before New York, at Barneys. On March 8, one evening with the designer star is programmed in the department store of Manhattan.




To learn more :
www.topshop.com

M by Madonna

H&M the international retail giant and their head of design Margareta van den Bosch have teamed up with Madonna to create a line of clothing and accessories that are scheduled to arrive in all stores carrying the women’s wear collection, around the world the 10th of March 2007.







The 'M by Madonna' fashion line will reflect Madonna's timeless, unique and always glamorous style. A long standing cultural icon whose enormous global influence on how people dress and look is without equal, Madonna worked hand in hand with Margareta van den Bosch to create a wardrobe of clothing and accessories that represent her own personal and modern spin on her very own wardrobe staples.



'Madonna has an impressive feel for fashion and trends. She was extraordinarily style conscious, passionate and was involved in even the smallest details of every design. There is no doubt that Madonna's influence is reflected by the 'M by Madonna' line', stated Margareta van den Bosch regarding the collaboration.
'I've made no secret of my love of fashion over the years. Working with Margareta and H&M was an exciting and new creative challenge for me. I'm really happy with the results and look forward to wearing 'M by Madonna' along with the rest of the world', concluded Madonna.





Madonna, the multi-Grammy winning singer, Fashion icon, video visionary, constant innovator, children’s book author, human rights activist and cultural phenomenon just completed the most successful concert tour of any female artist in music history. Her most recent cd Confessions On A Dance Floor debuted at No. 1 in 29 countries.


Founded in Sweden in l947, H&M which has over 1,300 stores in 24 countries is synonymous around the world with affordable, up to date and high quality fashion. The company’s collections are created by their own designers.