Madonna Fashion Impact: Blond Ambition Tour
Fashion Madonna: let’s talk about her. Madonna launched her solo career within the same year, 1981, in which MTV: Music Television first aired. What serendipitous timing, considering that MTV brought music into a visual medium and Madonna relied upon visuals more than anyone else before her (excluding Elvis). Whether misusing religious iconography in music videos or displaying gay men kissing in her behind-the-scenes 1991 documentary, Truth or Dare, Madonna started off as a pop singer who you had to see. (It’s worth noting that Madonna opened the very first MTV Video Music Awards in 1984.)
As the optics-focused artist she is, naturally the Madonna fashion catalog boasts a profusion of memorable, and often decade-defining outfits. One of Madonna’s most impactful fashion moments in pop culture is undoubtedly the Jean-Paul Gaultier cone bra corset. A version of the cone-covered-breasts first appeared on the runway in Gaultier’s show in 1987, then it shocked the throngs of Madonna fans in the 1990 Blond Ambition tour.
Not only did the cone bra corset make an impact on sartorial styles to come, but it also made an impact for Madonna, as she and Gaultier collaborated for years to come. The cone bra served as the two’s first time working together, though, with Madonna initiating the partnership in 1989, according to a New York Times interview with Gaultier from 2001, which happened to focus on the Blond Ambition cone bra corset. The fashion moment was so important that a whole NYT interview centered around it.
Opening the concert with “Express Yourself,” Madonna appeared on stage donning a black with a cut-up white pinstripes suit before launching into energetic choreography. Midway through the song, Madonna stripped off the suit to reveal the light pink, almost flesh colored corset — transitioning from traditionally masculine to hyper-feminine styles before audiences’ eyes. In the interview with NYT, Gaultier said, she liked his clothes for the way they combined with played with gender in his clothing.
To see a body part that often gets fetishized for its round curves transformed into a somewhat phallic, pointy shape certainly subverts a fully gendered article of clothing.
Describing his first time seeing a corset, Gaultier told the New York Times a memory of his grandmother pointing out the garment to him at a museum. “[She] explained that a corset was meant to help you, to make you stand up. It was a solution that I thought was beautiful. The gold conical bra was just an extension of that idea.”
In Blond Ambition’s choreography of “Like a Virgin,” the cones from the corset play a part in subverting gender even more with the male backup dancers’ adorning of them alongside Madonna, who writhes around and caresses herself atop an angled bed with satin drapes behind her onstage.
Madonna Fashion
Madonna continued influencing designers like Gaultier well after the 80s and 90s, whether subtly or overtly. In his 2013 Spring/Summer collection, Gaultier overtly named Madonna as one of the inspirations for his 80s-icon-themed clothing line, along with other 80s style icons who subverted gender, like Grace Jones and David Bowie. “Madonna was the post-feminist, what came after the bra-burning years. She said 'Yes, I am going to dress sexy, but I am the one deciding to do it,'“ Gaultier said at the 2012 fashion show.
Both owning one’s sexuality and combining masculine/feminine styles remain prominent themes driving fashion designs today, and the cone bra has frequently reappeared in pop culture in recent
In 2021, Page Six published a piece with a headline announcing “The cone bra is making a comeback.” Fashion trends often return to the styles of the past as if we’re spiraling through time on a cone bra ourselves.