madonna blond ambition tour hair

Madonna Wore At Least 3 Different Hairstyles on the Opening Night of Her Tour

By Kara Nesvig

Madonna is back, baby! The Queen of Pop just kicked off her massive Celebration tour in London, and in true Madonna fashion, she left absolutely no detail unnoticed, including her many hairstyles. (Oh, and she's also back to her signature bright blonde , so there's that too.)

As the name of the tour suggests, the show is a celebration of Madonna's entire career — the '80s pop tartlet, the '90s glam girl, the Ray of Light spirituality, and everything in between. The musician, who has long been known for her powers of transformation, switched up her hairstyles as a nod to some of those iconic eras and, once again, I'm left speechless by the power of backstage glam teams to make such big changes so fast. Let's check out the main looks from the Celebration tour, created by Madonna's longtime hairstylist Andy Lecompte , shall we? (Spoiler alert: If you're trying to avoid secrets from the show, do not scroll down!) 

Madonna opened the show with her Ray of Light song “Nothing Really Matters” and wore her hair in loose, free-flowing waves reminiscent of that era for a portion of the show. Her hair was parted in the center for a hippie-ish vibe with subtle dark roots and styled in easy waves down her back and shoulders, perfect for dancing. If you look closely, it appears she added a pop of yellow to the mid-lengths near her ears. 

Later, the Material Girl threw it back to her '90s Dick Tracy and Vogue period with a short, super-curly Marilyn Monroe-inspired bob , dramatically parted to one side and curled in big, fluffy ringlets. At one point in this segment, she had an intimate moment with a dancer who wore a high, braided ponytail reminiscent of the one Madge donned during her Blonde Ambition tour, as though in 2023 she was revisiting her past self.

By Aliza Kelly

By Sophie Saint Thomas

As if the waves-to-curls, long-to-short change-up wasn't enough, there was yet another transformation in store: an extra-long, pin-straight blonde style with just the teeniest, softest hint of pink . When paired with a mirrored silver bodysuit, Madonna looked every bit the powerful, trailblazer she is.  Each style she wore onstage, as simple as they may seem, was a reminder of how influential she has been: Without her, would we even have the “eras” of today's pop girls? Of course, this is Madonna we're talking about, so there are probably more hairstyling surprises in store for the rest of the tour.

More from Madge:

• Madonna Just Revealed a Shag Haircut — and Her Natural Curls
• Madonna Has Pink Hair ... and No Eyebrows
• Madonna's Daughter Is Her Brunette Twin on the Runway at Paris Fashion Week

Now, revisit some of the biggest beauty icons of the past 100 years:

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By Marci Robin

34 Marley Twists Styles To Try in 2023

11 memorable madonna hairstyles.

Madonna hairstyles we love including her most recent 'super blood wolf moon' hair.

Pop sensation Madonna has reinvented herself more times than we can count, with each new era revealing a whole new hairstyle to match. From her ‘ 80s wild child vibes to Marilyn Monroe-inspired curls  (and even the occasional foray into  darker hair colours ), she’s always been famous for her hair.

And since the Queen of Pop turns 60 this year, what better occasion to take a trip down memory lane and reminisce over some of her best looks?

Click through the Madonna hair gallery, above, for a sneak peek at some of our personal highlights or keep on reading to learn more about each look. How many of them you can remember from over the years?

1985 – Side ponytail goals

Probably one of Madonna’s most iconic looks of all time, it’s only fitting that we start things off with one of her trademark ’80s styles.

Along with stars like Cyndi Lauper, Madonna took the side ponytail and not only made it cool again, but made it the hairstyle of the moment.

1988 – Madonna with short hair

A host of leading ladies like  Christina Aguilera , Miley Cyrus and Kate Upton have all played dress up as Marilyn Monroe over the years, but Madonna’s short hair was the first to spark the trend with this lookalike style. Paying homage to the actress with cropped blonde curls and a slick of red lipstick, she’s a total bombshell!

Editor’s tip:  This look commands lifted, voluminous curls, so a mousse is a must. Apply a handful of the Bed Head Rockaholic Amped Up Volumizing Mousse , concentrating it on the roots where the extra height is needed.

1989 – Madonna with dark hair

We tend to think of Madonna as a through-and-through blonde , but this hasn’t always been the case. The Material Girl  is actually a natural brunette (who knew?!) and in 1989 she traded her platinum ‘do for something a little closer to her natural hue, rocking a chocolate-brown shade for her  Like A Prayer  music video.

Madonna’s dark hair gave her a more natural, fresh-faced appeal which she must have been a fan of, as she has returned to the dark side several times since!

1990 – Madonna with long hair in a ponytail

How could we do a round-up of Madge’s best mane moments and not mention this ponytail of dreams? During her 1990 Blonde Ambition tour, Madonna introduced the world to one of her most iconic looks ever with her conical bra and high-impact braided ponytail .

The clip-on ponytail she wore recently sold for £12,000 at auction, so it’s safe to say the world is still just as Hung Up over this style as ever!

1997 – Lots of layers

Thanks to the power of the  Rachel Green effect, the ’90s were all about face-framing layers and textured cuts. Staying true to the trend of the moment, Madonna accepted her 1997 Golden Globe Award for Evita with softly curled layers and a sweeping side fringe, showing off her natural beauty.

2007 – Classy curls

Proving that you don’t have to have flowing locks to Express Yourself,  Madonna rocked these short, bob -length Hollywood waves  for a red carpet premiere.

With a chic centre parting and honey blonde hue, this flirty ‘do is super flattering look for the mother of six.

2009 – Retro backcombing

Always one step ahead of the trends, Madonna was a fan of  backcombing long before the rest of us caught on to the Brigitte Bardot trend.

This sky-high bouffant and blown-out layers combo screams ’60s glam, but somehow she still manages to make it look modern and fresh. Jealous, us?! Never…

Editor’s tip: Fancy giving Madonna’s ’60s style a try? Prep your strands with a volumising dry shampoo (like the TIGI Bed Head Oh Bee Hive! Dry Shampoo ), before backcombing to help boost limp locks at the roots for gravity-defying volume!

2013 – Blunt bob at the Met Ball

Never the retiring wallflower, Madonna committed to the  punk theme of the 2013 Met Ball  with this edgy get-up. With a sharp brunette bob and statement  micro fringe , it’s safe to say Madonna with black hair is a winning combo!

2016 – Boho waves

As you’ve seen, Madonna is far from shy when it comes to playing around with her look. Yet in recent years, she’s traded in her wild child card for a more demure  bohemian -inspired vibe.

Madonna’s long hair with  grown-out roots and kinky waves  makes this effortless look may be more pared back than her past endeavours but is certainly no less stylish!

Editor’s tip:  To recreate these lived-in waves for yourself, prep towel-dried, freshly-washed hair with a wave-enhancing product, such as the  Toni&Guy Wave Memorising Balm . Then divide your hair into sections and braid , leaving them to dry overnight.

When you wake up in the morning and take out your braids, you’ll be left with the soft, natural-looking waves that you’ve always dreamed of!

2018 – Goth queen vibes

Another Met Gala, another hairstyle for the history books. Fully embracing 2018’s Catholicism theme, the Queen of Pop showed off her regal status with this gothic queen look. Complete with black net veil , pigtail plaits and an ornate golden crown , she ruled the red carpet.

2019 – Super blood wolf moon hair

The last time we saw Madonna with dark hair was in 1999 and 2013! But, it seems the recent super blood wolf moon inspired the star to switch up her signature blonde style for something more mysterious…

Taking to Instagram to showcase her drastic new look, the icon sported noticeably short dark tresses , choosing to style them into sultry,  retro curls (anyone else getting Betty Boop vibes?).

While we aren’t 100% sure this look is real, like Madonna, we’re now definitely going to start looking to the stars for hair inspiration.

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Madonna's Blond Ambition Dancers, 25 Years After 'Truth Or Dare' Made Them Queer Icons

Senior Entertainment Reporter, HuffPost

Released at the height of her fame, Madonna ’s 1991 documentary “ Truth or Dare ” was a seminal moment for pop superstardom. One of the world’s most scrutinized celebrities invited cameras to chronicle the intimate behind-the-scenes happenings of what would become one of the decade’s most celebrated roadshows, 1990’s elaborate Blond Ambition Tour . But Madonna fans fawning over this naked depiction of their queen got a surprisingly profound B-plot surrounding the singer’s backup dancers, a cabal of mostly gay young men representing queer culture at a time when mainstream visibility was almost nonexistent. For a short stint, Madonna became a mother figure to them, and then, after a whirlwind trip across the globe, it all came to an abrupt halt.

Today, “Truth or Dare” is defined as much by these dancers as it is by Madonna. The documentary “ Strike a Pose ” showcases what seven of them have been up to in the 25 years since the Blond Ambition Tour and “Truth or Dare.” A humane and stirring portrait, the movie premiered at last year’s Tribeca Film Festival , where I sat down with the group to discuss their journey. On April 6, “Strike a Pose” will air on Logo. Here are highlights of our conversation.

I’ve probably seen “Truth or Dare” 2,000 times, so this is a true pinch-me moment for Madonna fans. What do you remember about the day you all parted ways after the tour ended?

Luis Camacho: What I remember is not saying goodbye. I left the very next day ― I don’t want to say mad, but kind of upset that it was all over. My defense against it being over was, “I’m just leaving!” But on the plane back, I was like, “Wow, what just happened? I can’t believe that, at this moment, right now, in this chair, on this plane, it is over.”

Reijer Zwaan, co-director: That’s exactly what started the first thought of the film we made. If you’ve been through such a thing at such a young age, something so impactful and powerful and great, then what?

What did you envision when you first considered making the movie?

Reijer: I had seen “Truth or Dare” ― maybe not 2,000 times, but 1,999 ― and they all had a real impact on me because they were so free and strong and powerful. They were so iconic in my mind. And then we started talking about it as a basic idea, and as soon as we met them it turned into being a film about how hard it is to actually be yourself and show yourself to the world, even for the men we all know for being proud and out and strong.

Ester Gould, co-director: I think there’s something also about the choice to make it about the dancers. It’s not a look back at the whole tour, with Madonna’s brother and the makeup and the background singers, who definitely have a huge role on the tour. There was something so poignant about making this choice. For gay culture, they’re the iconic figures ― and Madonna, of course. How do you continue life after being an icon when you were only 20?

Carlton Wilborn: What’s interesting to me — and I never thought this until now ― is the Madonna version of the iconic status is because it’s the rah-rah. Us becoming that, I think, makes sense for people because we’re relatable. We are the everyday gay person, the trying-to-figure-it-all-out person. That humanized us to our fan base in a way that Madonna could not.

Did it take seeing “Truth or Dare” to understand that icon status, or did you experience it while on the tour?

Luis: By the time we saw the film, we were aware, honestly. After that, it only got bigger. Now, that being said, that whole frenzy came with people saying how much we inspired them to come out themselves. We never set out to do that, but it turned out that was the gift of that whole situation.

Salim “Slam” Gauwloos : Years later, that’s what I started to realize: “You know, we did do something. We changed people’s lives.” Even to this day, we get emails and everything. It’s just amazing. I still gag about it.

Kevin Stea: When I saw “Truth or Dare,” it wasn’t like, “Oh, this is some big revelation of how famous and iconic we were.” It was like watching a home movie. It was literally like, “Oh, that was so fun; oh, that was so cute; oh my God, there you were, Slam!”

Kevin and Oliver, you sued Madonna for using showcasing your sexuality in the movie. Having come far in the evolution of queer culture since “Truth or Dare,” what do you make of the suit?

Kevin: I don’t regret the lawsuit at all. I’m very proud of what I did and proud of standing up for myself and my community and being a voice for dancers and the dance community. That said, there were different issues between all of us. I think what got convoluted in the lawsuit was that [Gabriel Trupin, a dancer who died of AIDS in 1995] was suing for something very different than we were. Oliver and I were literally just suing for our contract. There was a clause for a movie, and she didn’t honor it. That was it. But what ended up being sensationalized was Gabriel’s forced outing. I mean, I was also forcibly outed, but I totally accepted it ― that’s fine. She came out for me! Ta-da! Hey, everybody! But Gabriel was in a different position. He had a boyfriend, his boyfriend had a son, and he was getting bullied and attacked at school. There were lots of other things involved in his situation that just became sensationalized by the media. That’s all that’s left now — when you hear about that period of time, all that’s left are these little snippets of sensationalist press that we were trying to drag Madonna through the mud. And that’s not at all what we were trying to do. We just wanted them to honor our clause.

Oliver Crumes III, the only straight man in the bunch, who made homophobic remarks at the start of Blond Ambition: I mirror what he said.

Reijer: When it comes to Gabriel, that was about being outed, and it was about being shown kissing another man, Salim. And we talked about it a lot. There’s the personal privacy of Gabriel, obviously, and then there’s the greater good. We’re still talking about the film today, about the kiss today. For many, many people, it was the first gay kiss they saw that they could maybe identify with. So there were these two things to weigh, both for Madonna and the director, Alek Keshishian. Our debate has not ended on that.

What do you think? Should she have kept Gabriel and Salim’s kiss?

Salim: I had a boyfriend at that moment, so my only thing is that I didn’t want to cheat. I was thinking, “Oh my God, I should go to her and tell her my situation and maybe she won’t put it in there.” I was thinking about that, but I didn’t.

Ester: Didn’t you edit it on a VHS tape?

Salim: That too. You remember we got a VHS copy of the movie before it was shown in the movie theater? I edited that part out. That was so weird, coming from Europe and coming to America. I never had the whole thing, coming out of the closet. I came straight out of ballet school, so with my family there was never a problem with the kiss or anything. They always knew I was gay. The HIV thing, that was another thing, that I told them just recently. But still, they were so open about it.

Carlton: But it does get to be interesting because it was inside of a game of Truth or Dare, right? So the way I look at it now is, what if the same dare was given to two straight guys? What kind of conversation would we be having about it? I find that to be very interesting. I think maybe because you had your own personal story about it, it because glaring about your sexuality. But to me, it literally was a game. I wasn’t seeing two gay guys wanting to be together.

Ester: But to conservative America, they’re not going to think, “Oh, they might be straight but playing a game.” That’s just not done.

All of you shot individual footage before being reunited for “Strike a Pose.” What was it like finally being in the same room together? Many of you hadn’t seen one another since “Truth or Dare” opened.

Carlton: Phenomenal.

Oliver: I was just blown away. I couldn’t believe it. “Look, they’re all grown up! Everybody looks good, everybody looks healthy.” It was just beautiful, it really was. We were in the restaurant for a very long time just chatting, and I heard stuff that I’d never heard before, from before the movie even came out. I remember going home after the wrap party and I’m sitting on the plane going, “Wow, I did not notice that about Slam and Carlton and Luis.” It tripped me out because, in my eyes, and from what I thought I would have happened to them, everything was good, there were no ups and downs. But come to find out…

Luis: There were some ups and downs.

Oliver: There were some serious ups and downs, and even when they told me about [Salim and Carlton’s HIV-positive status, which they hid during Blond Ambition], I was like, “You could have told me this in the beginning.” I would have been OK with it because that’s how close we were.

Ester: There’s an indescribable vibe when they all get together.

Did you attempt to get Madonna in that room?

Reijer: We talked about it a lot, actually, because a lot of people around us, like the financiers of the film, would always ask about that, like, “Get her in!”

Ester: We even felt pressured that that was the only way [to get the movie financed].

Reijer: And we always thought, “Just try to imagine the same dinner with her there.” It would have been completely different. It was just hard to have that same conversation.

Esther: If you think about it, the whole film is about them, and then all of a sudden you’d have her appear? There would be something very off about that.

Did you try to involve her at all, in any sense?

Reijer: Obviously the archival footage we had to clear with her, and we thought about some big “Vogue” scene, but there was nothing we truly considered. Coming together and actually performing ― that would have made sense, but I don’t mind it not happening.

Carlton: Us at dinner with her is a whole TV special in itself. “Strike a Pose 2.0.”

Given the lawsuit and how quickly Madonna moved on with her career, how would you guys feel to be in the same room with her again?

Kevin: I would absolutely love it.

Oliver: I would feel the same way.

Kevin: Just like we’re family, it would feel like there’s one more missing family member joining the table.

Oliver: I don’t know what’s going on right now as far as all of her tours, but I’m sure she doesn’t have what she had with us.

Kevin: I think there’s something to be said about how our youth lives on in others. When we see each other, we’re suddenly brought back to ourselves when we were 20. We feel younger. I feel like that would be an opportunity for her to remember her youth.

Luis: And how epic would that be, to have that photo-op, that screenshot, that video of her with us one more time? Wouldn’t the world just go crazy?

Yes. Yes, it would.

Carlton: I think what’s powerful about this movie right now is that, in relation to the Madonna sensibility, her way has always been much more European ― very out of the box, very free with the body and the skin. So it just is a wonderful irony that taking it to the next level gets to be a team from Europe that’s doing such incredible activity already. [ Editor’s note: Ester Gould is English, and Reijer Zwaan is Dutch. ] They took what was rich about it and they took the cap off of it, and I think that’s why it feels so compelling to be around.

Ester: I guess we don’t get blinded by the whole celebrity of it all. We really don’t. It’s not like we have to try not to — we really don’t care.

I think that’s the only way to make this documentary effectively.

Ester: Right. But at the same time, we don’t care about bashing her. We got some pressure about her having to be on board or having to be in the final scene in the film, but also there’s people who wanted us to bash her somehow in the film. For us, it’s really important that the film moves away from that whole culture, which is a very gossipy, tiring way of thinking, and who gives a shit?

Most of you didn’t work with Madonna again after Blond Ambition. Did you keep up with her career after parting ways?

Oliver: I never went to any of her concerts, but I did keep up with her. I’ve said this before, but once again, my favorite thing that I’ve seen her do out of all the years was the Super Bowl when she did “Vogue.” But here’s my thing, and I say this with strong belief: She should always do what Jose and Luis choreographed.

Salim: I do think Jose and Luis’ choreography on “Vogue” was the best. It was just the best.

Calton: But in all fairness, I think if we’re going to say that, because there are so many iconic moments about that show, [Blond Ambition director and choreographer Vince Patterson’s] work was equally incredible. What he did with “ Like a Prayer ,” with all of us moving as an organism.

Luis: Since Blond Ambition, it’s become this thing ― I don’t know why, but I’ve seen all the tours after, and not by choice, but because there’s always someone who wants to go to the concert with me, like, “I bought you a ticket, will you go with me?” It turns into this thing, like, “I’m at the Madonna concert with Luis!” It’s very weird, but I get to see the show for free and they’re always really good tickets. On the Confessions Tour, t hat whole opening was incredible, and I had the best seats. She opened with “ Future Lovers ” and she comes out of a ball. The ball opens and she’s there, and I’m literally right in front of her. I just smiled like this [ makes a huge face ], and go, “Hiiii!”

Did she recognize you?

Luis: Yeah! She looked down! She was like, “Hmmm.” She gave me that “what’s up, girl?” look.

What’s your favorite Madonna memory?

Carlton: One of my favorite moments was actually still in the audition process. She had the auditions, she did the cuts, and then she invited us to go take a hip-hop class, which ended up being Oliver’s class. And she was actually there in the class learning the stuff. I thought she was going to be there to watch us learn something and make some choices. But it was amazing to see her in the confusion and in the not-knowing and the needing to ask whether something was on the 7 or 8 beat or what’s the elbow do. That was really cool. She is fucking human.

Kevin: One of my favorite moments was teaching her “Open Your Heart.” I didn’t know the counts. I was the associate choreographer, but I was teaching her from the words because I thought it would be easier, because it was all based on the words. And she’s like, “I want counts!” I’m like, “Just learn the words!” It’s one of those moments where she got all stressed, and then I said, “Just go from the words” and she really gave me a glare, but then she understood immediately and was like, “OK.” She was human about it. She went to Madonna for a moment, and then she went back to being human.

Oliver: One of my favorite moments doing “ Open Your Heart ” ― it’s not a good moment, but it’s one of my favorites. She would be mad at me, and I’m dancing on the stage and as I’m coming down, she’s sitting on a chair. If she’s mad at me, she’d smile at the audience, but when she’d turn around to me, she’d be [ makes a stoned-face expression ]. She’d be cursing me out onstage, literally! And the “Vogue” video, too.

Salim: I have two favorite moments. “ Express Yourself ,” just the beginning when we would come on ― the crowd! And also playing Dick Tracy , being introduced to 50,000 people as “Slam.” Just being a dancer is beyond my wildest dreams.

Luis: I have a lot, but one of my favorite memories was me, Madonna and Jose going to the Prince concert. We got up onstage and danced with Prince for a minute.

Jose: Well, she danced with him. It was so funny: When we got onstage, because we were tall, he ran and jumped on top of a speaker. He was in between us and he brought the girl, Mayte, and he pulled her into our circle and he ran. He’s like, “These guys are not going to steal the show from me.” That’s exactly what it was. You could feel it! And we were wearing these tight Gaultier pinstripes ― they were almost dresses with straps and everything. So we looked larger than life. We were trying to dance with him and he just ran off!

Luis: In his heels!

Jose: It was so weird.

Carlton: Jose, what was your favorite?

Jose: I think the shopping that we did. The shopping was always the best, like in Paris. That was my favorite. We got to go around all the stores and pick out stuff, not having to worry about prices. When she would say “you can pick whatever you want,” I would melt.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.

“ Strike a Pose ” airs April 6 at 8 p.m. ET on Logo.

Hit Backspace for a regular dose of pop culture nostalgia.

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Madonna: 56 Of Her Most Memorable Looks

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How Madonna’s Blond Ambition Tour Changed Pop Concerts Forever

1990's Blond Ambition took Madge's natural sense of showmanship to new heights.

By Jon O'Brien

Jon O'Brien

“I know that I’m not the best singer and I know that I’m not the best dancer. But, I can f—ing push people’s buttons and be as provocative as I want. This tour’s goal is to break useless taboos.” There was only one all-singing, all-dancing chart-topper who could get away with such a bold declaration at the turn of the ’90s, and it wasn’t Paula Abdul.

From the moment that she writhed around suggestively in a wedding dress at the 1984 MTV VMAs, Madonna became the live act that you couldn’t — and didn’t want to — take your eyes off. Singing in front of a traditional guitar-bass-drums trio was never going to cut it for the woman seemingly hellbent on shocking middle America.

Bhavi, Seven Kayne, Milo J, Tiago PZK, Khea & Neo Pistea Top Argentina Hot 100 With 'Bésame (Remix)'

Then the undisputed Queen of Pop by quite a margin, Madonna had already toyed with the theatrical on 1987’s Who’s That Girl Tour, a whirlwind of glitzy costume changes, giant video screens and dramatic reenactments that she described as “Broadway in a stadium.” But 1990’s Blond Ambition — which kicked off 30 years ago — took Madge’s natural sense of showmanship to new heights.

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Madonna asked Jean-Paul Gaultier to create more than 60 costumes for the tour, an amount which the haute couture designer admits took  350 aspirins  to get through. Luckily, all this headache-inducing work paid off. The Frenchman’s conical bra creation, which was later sold at auction for $52,000 , became one of the defining fashion statements of the decade. And items such as the polka-dotted blouse, clip-on ponytail and mic headset all became a part of the chart-topper’s style legacy, too.

Unsurprisingly, Madonna was just as fastidious when it came to the tour’s choreography. “Wimps and wannabes need not apply” read the call out seeking “fierce male dancers” for the tour. Led by Vincent Paterson, the chosen army of six were put through boot camp-like rehearsals in preparation for a tour that spanned 57 dates, five months and three continents. And with its large hydraulic platform and multiple elaborate sets, Blond Ambition’s staging essentially cost the same as the GDP of a small country. Simply no one else could compete, not even the King to Madonna’s Queen of Pop. A few years prior, Michael Jackson’s Bad Tour had impressed many with its slick moves and dazzling lights – even the BBC’s cult hero John Peel hailed it as a “performance of matchless virtuosity.” But Madge’s elaborative high-concept, five-act production left it for dust.

Blond Ambition didn’t give fans a single opportunity to get bored or head for the bar. Every four minutes there was something new to digest. Take the opening ‘Metropolis’ section, inspired by the expressionist sci-fi of Fritz Lang, for example. Madonna simulates sex in that bra while performing “Express Yourself,” straddles a chair during “Open Your Heart” and belts out “Causing a Commotion” while playfully wrestling her two backing vocalists to the ground. And this was just the first quarter of an hour.

As you’d expect from an artist whose Pepsi commercial had been yanked amidst calls of blasphemy, the second ‘Religious’ section was even more attention-grabbing. Wildly rubbing her crotch in a red velvet bed, Madonna left little to the imagination on a sensual reworking of “Like a Virgin.” And on “Like a Prayer,” the track whose provocative video had caused the soft drink giants to bail, the star and her crew are kitted out as nuns and priests.

Of course, much of the predominantly Roman Catholic nation of Italy didn’t appreciate this type of cosplay. A second date at the Stadio Flaminio was called off after none other than Pope John Paul II implored citizens to boycott “one of the most satanic shows in the history of humanity.”

The controversial blend of religion and erotica also incurred the wrath of the Toronto police force, particularly the “lewd and obscene” display of “Like a Virgin.” But despite the threat of arrest, Madonna and her management team refused to bow down to authority. The star even referenced the furor during her second show at the city’s SkyDome, asking the crowd “Do you think that I’m a bad girl?… I hope so.”

Madonna famously described Toronto as a fascist state in Truth or Dare , the illuminating backstage documentary which further boosted Blond Ambition’s pop cultural cachet. Who can forget the scene where the star pretends to gag after Kevin Costner – then the biggest movie star in the world – summarizes 105 minutes of sense-assaulting, boundary-pushing entertainment as “neat”?

Thankfully, the sell-out crowds reacted to the tour with a little more enthusiasm, even the Dick Tracy section featuring several numbers that would have been unfamiliar at the time. The comic book adaptation, which co-starred Madonna as femme fatale Breathless Mahoney, hit the big screen half-way through Blond Ambition’s run. And the ever-astute star attempted to guide fans towards the cinema with a high-kicking third act dedicated to the trench coat-wearing detective.

But for sheer entertainment value, the ‘Art Deco’ segment is tough to beat. Sporting a pink bathrobe and curlers while seated under a beauty parlor hair dryer, Madonna performed the whole of “Material Girl” in a comical Noo-Yawk accent before throwing fake dollar bills into the crowd. “Cherish” saw the star take up the harp accompanied by (what else?) a troupe of dancing mermen. And following a West Side Story -inspired routine for arguably her finest pure pop moment, “Into the Groove,” she wrapped things up with a faithful recreation of the iconic “Vogue” video.

By the time each and every crew member bids an on-stage farewell during the Bob Fosse-meets- A Clockwork Orange encore of “Keep it Together,” it’s clear that you’ve just witnessed a spectacle of ground-breaking proportions. As dancer Luis Camacho said, Madonna “wanted to give the audience an experience, rather than them just going to a concert. She set the stage for concert shows and experiences that followed.” The tour even impressed Grammy voters, who were notoriously slow to recognize Madonna’s greatness. The video of the tour won the 1991 award for best music video, long form — Madonna’s very first Grammy Award.

Sure enough, no longer were audiences content to watch their pop idol simply play the hits. Elaborate production values and strong narrative arcs soon became just as integral to the superstar tour as the music itself. You only have to look at Michael Jackson’s Dangerous shows, complete with catapult stunts and ghoulish illusions, two years later to recognize the immediate impact Blond Ambition had. And it has continued to inspire pop’s A-listers ever since. Without Blond Ambition, it’s unlikely we’d have the gravity-defying acrobatics of P!nk, the candy-colored razzmatazz of Katy Perry or the formidable conceptual journeys of Beyoncé. And it goes without saying that its footprints were all over the various balls staged by Lady Gaga.

Madonna herself has refused to rest on her laurels, going even bigger and bolder on the likes of 1993’s The Girlie Show, 2004’s Re-Invention and 2008’s Sticky and Sweet. But nothing has ever changed the game quite like her extremely blond and incredibly ambitious 1990 world tour.

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Pose Reaches Peak Madonna: a Visual History of the 1990 Blond Ambition Tour

Pose has finally done it: the series has reached peak Madonna, and there is no turning back. After heavily referencing the superstar on each episode of season two, the obsession finally reached an apex with episode five . In “What Would Candy Do?” Ricky and Damon (played by Ryan Jamaal Swain ) are on the rocks relation-ship wise, and are both auditioning to be backup dancers for the Blond Ambition tour. Going head to head in a dance-off is certainly not helping them in the love department, but we, as viewers, do get some insight into the importance of the backup dancers on the iconic tour. Over the past decade, critics have accused other pop stars—like Lady Gaga—of copying Madonna, but the show makes clear that the Material Girl also did her fair share of “borrowing.” It’s no secret now—especially not in the ballroom world of Pose — that Madonna brought voguing to the mainstream when she co-opted the moves. But the question of appreciation versus appropriation comes up here, with Blanca on one side of the argument (she sees the popularization of voguing as useful and empowering) and Pray Tell on the other (he’s fearful of the subculture being siphoned). Looking back at the real Blond Ambition tour, which was immortalized in the documentary Madonna: Truth or Dare (and later in the 2016 doc Strike a Pose ), we can see that as much as that tour is known for Madonna’s famous Jean-Paul Gaultier cone bra , it was her dancers who made the whole spectacle culturally relevant. Pose aims to unpack that in this episode. If it weren’t for the queer men of color who danced on the tour, Blond Ambition would not have been as effective or as subversive. And neither would her music video for “Vogue”—a black-and-white David Fincher project that was as inspired by the ballroom scene as it was by Isaac Julien’s film Looking for Langston and the work of Bob Fosse . Here, a glimpse of what the tour looked like nearly 30 years ago—including scenes of backup dancers Luis Camacho, Oliver Crumes, Salim “Slam” Gauwloos, Jose Gutierez Xtravaganza, Kevin Stea, Gabriel Trupin and Carlton Wilborn.

Madonna poses with her backup dancers for Madonna: Truth or Dare . Photo courtesy Everett Collection.

Madonna performs with backup dancers in a Bob Fosse inspired bowler hat routine. Photo courtesy of Getty Images.

Madonna with backup dancers during the Blond Ambition World Tour in 1990. Photo courtesy of Getty Images.

Backup dancers rehearse in a scene from Strike a Pose , Ester Gould and Reijer Zwaan’s 2016 documentary about the backup dancers of the Blond Ambition World Tour. Photo courtesy of Everett Collection.

Luis Camacho prepares for the stage in a still from Strike a Pose . Photo courtesy of Everett Collection.

Madonna performs with her dancers in the Blonde Ambition Japan Tour at Chiba Marine Stadium, April 13th, 1990, Chiba, Japan. Photo courtesy of Getty Images.

Madonna and her dancers performing in 1990. Photo courtesy of Getty Images.

Madonna performs another routine that pays homage to Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon in the Blond Ambition World Tour. Photo courtesy of Getty Images.

Madonna’s Blond Ambition World Tour 1990. Photo courtesy of Getty Images.

Madonna and her backup dancers, wearing mermaid tails, during the Blond Ambition World Tour in 1990. Photo courtesy of Getty Images.

Madonna plays the harp while her mermaid backup dancers surround her during the Blond Ambition World Tour in 1990. Photo courtesy of Getty Images.

Not all of Madonna’s backup dancers were men. Two women support the singer on stage during the Blond Ambition World Tour in 1990. Photo courtesy of Getty Images.

Madonna wears the iconic Jean-Paul Gaultier cone bra during the Los Angeles leg of the Blond Ambition World Tour in 1990. Photo courtesy of Getty Images.

Madonna and Salim Gauwloos have a Dick Tracy moment during the Blond Ambition World Tour in 1990. Photo courtesy of Getty Images.

Madonna shares the cone bra spotlight with a backup dancer during the Blond Ambition World Tour on June 30, 1990. Photo courtesy of Getty Images.

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25 Reasons Madonna's Blond Ambition Tour Still Rules, 25 Years Later

A quarter of a century ago, cone bras ruled the world

Madonna kicked off her Blond Ambition World Tour on April 13, 1990, 25 years ago this week. Besides offering the world Madonna in her absolute prime – as a performer and as an all-around focus of attention – Blond Ambition changed the pop-culture landscape.

Fans might be surprised to learn that it’s not Madonna’s highest-grossing tour; Sticky & Sweet, MDNA and The Girlie Show each performed better. And it featured only 57 stops. But it’s still hugely important and might have done the most to define Madonna as a music icon – and here are 25 reasons for that.

(NSFW warning: The article features clips from Madonna in concert, and some of the language might not be work-appropriate. Hey, it’s Madonna.)

1. It reinvented the concert tour.

Today, most major pop tours are full-scale productions with costume changes, special effects, elaborate sets and a sense of drama that takes the experience beyond someone just singing into a microphone. It wasn’t always that way, however, and Madonna and choreographer Vincent Paterson specifically set out to elevate the concert.

As Paterson explained to PEOPLE in a 1990 interview, “The biggest thing we tried to do is change the shape of concerts. Instead of just presenting songs, we wanted to combine fashion, Broadway, rock and performance art.”

2. It has full-on acts

The fact that Madonna divided her performances into five thematic categories – Metropolis, Religious, Dick Tracy, Art Deco and Encore – suggests not only a level of creative planning unusual for concerts at the time but also the sheer volume of material Madonna had to work with – and at only 31 years old, no less.

3. It made a ton of money.

In the first two hours that tickets went on sale, a total of 482,832 were purchased, for a grand total of $14,237,000. By the end of the tour, Madonna had generated more than $62 million – that’s $113 million adjusted for inflation.

4. It helped cement the link between pop costumes and couture.

In addition to the vast majority of Blond Ambition’s many stage costumes, Madonna’s bullet bra was designed by haute couture legend Jean Paul Gaultier. In 2012, one of these very bras sold at a Christie’s auction for $52,000.

5. It gave us that iconic ponytail.

According to a 1990 edition of PEOPLE’s Style Watch, Madonna’s clip-on ponytail quickly became a look that fans copied when attending Blond Ambition stops. “Lots of women – and men – are showing up at her concerts with this hairdo,” remarked Warner Bros. Records publicity VP Liz Rosenberg. “It’s really catching on.”

You might think Madonna would do anything for a look, but that clip-on ponytail resulted from one specific need: she needed a style that wouldn’t get tangled in the headset she wears when she sings.

6. The title itself was a stand for independence.

Initially, it was to be the Like a Prayer World Tour, sponsored by Pepsi. Of course, the “Like a Prayer” video was met with a great deal of controversy, and Pepsi eventually backed out of a licensing deal with “The Donner.” Thus, Blond Ambition was born.

7. It overcame a rough start.

Blond Ambition kicked off on Friday the 13th – Friday, April 13, 1990, near Tokyo, Japan. Suitably, the weather was miserably wet and cold, and at one point Madonna slid across the wet stage and proclaimed, “You didn’t know you were here for an ice-skating show. Well, I’m Dorothy Hamill.”

8. It featured Madonna at her most perfectionist, for better or worse.

And according to the New York Times review of the concert , that meant the concert was more “live” than live. “Madonna has become so perfectionistic, and so athletic in her dancing, that she would clearly rather lip-sync than risk a wrong note,” the review notes. “With tickets priced at $30, concertgoers might expect a more live concert.”

9. It made Madonna confront "the fascist state of Toronto."

As documented in the 1991 behind-the-scenes movie Madonna: Truth or Dare , Toronto police threatened to arrest Madonna should her performance of “Like a Virgin” feature her miming masturbation. When the faux-Middle Eastern arrangement of the hit song played, however, Madonna did her usual dance, hand motions and all.

Ultimately the police opted not to arrest her on obscenity charges, but she still famously called the Canadian city a "fascist state."

10. It was condemned by the Vatican.

Not that it’s a good thing to earn the wrath of the Roman Catholic Church, but it speaks to what a big deal the Blond Ambition tour was that the Vatican’s official newspaper, Osservatore Romano , declared the show sinful – a more or less unprecedented decision.

11. "Don’t talk. If you talk, I will stop speaking, all right?"

Madonna’s response to the condemnation, however, was 100 percent Madonna. After commanding the Italian press to cease talking, she defends her performance. “Like theater, [Blond Ambition] asks questions, provokes thought and takes you on an emotional journey, portraying good and bad, light and dark, joy and sorrow, redemption and salvation.”

12. Every Blond Ambition performance began with a prayer.

Regardless of what the Pope may have thought of Madonna’s work, she felt she was on good terms with God, and Truth or Dare notes that she began every show with a group prayer.

13. She sang "Happy Birthday" to her dad at the tour’s Detroit show …

There’s been no shortage of kerfuffle about Madonna’s relationship with the rest of the Ciccone clan, but the tour featured a touching moment onstage with her dad, Silvio Ciccone, at her hometown show in Detroit.

14. Which means she performed all those naughty bits with her dad in the audience.

There’s a moment in Truth or Dare when she mentions that her dad watching the racier parts of the Blond Ambition tour is scarier than confronting the Toronto police.

15. It was a decidedly pro-gay show.

It’s notable that Madonna was up-front about the fact that six of her seven male backup dancers were gay men. Madonna, after all, had been outspoken about gay rights and gay people in general long before it became the norm among celebrities. In fact

16. Its final U.S. performance was dedicated to Keith Haring.

Madonna was good friends with the pop artist Keith Haring, who died of AIDS-related complications on Feb. 16, 1990. The Blond Ambition World Tour’s last American stop, in East Rutherford, New Jersey, was dedicated to Haring’s memory, and the more than $300,000 the show made was donated to the Foundation for AIDS Research. (Madonna’s Sticky & Sweet Tour used a Haring-inspired backdrop, seen in the above clip.)

17. It featured a gay Dick Tracy chorus line.

Skip forward to the 5:45 mark in this clip of the Blond Ambition performance of “Now I’m Following You” to see six dancing Dick Tracys pair off into three male-male pairs. It’s quite the spectacle, and it’s even more notable when you realize that most of the tour began before the 1990 Dick Tracy remake (in which Madonna starred) hit theaters, meaning this chorus line was the first glimpse fans saw of the reinvented Dick Tracy.

And no, none of those Dick Tracys were Warren Beatty , who played the title character and who was dating Madonna throughout the tour.

18. It was also pro-safe sex.

You have to hand it to Madonna: Encouraging the use of condoms was on-point in 1990, and every show had her introducing “Into the Groove” by saying, “You really never get to know a guy until you ask him to wear a rubber.”

19. It mocked the perception of Madonna as a dumb blond sexpot.

For the Blond Ambition take on “Material Girl,” Madonna sang the entire song in an accent that falls somewhere between dumb blonde, “Noo Yawk” housewife and gangster’s moll. Say what you will about Madonna taking herself very seriously, but most singers wouldn’t ever perform in curlers and a bathrobe.

20. It had grand cinematic aspirations beyond Dick Tracy .

The first act of the show is themed “Metropolis.” That’s not Superman’s city. That’s the 1927 German expressionist epic Metropolis , and you can see it in the retro-science-fiction aesthetic of the stage. Hey, if you were Madonna, you’d aim for high art.

21. There’s some Stanley Kubrick in there, too.

In a 1991 New York Times interview , Madonna described the Blond Ambition performance of “Keep It Together” as “Bob Fosse-meets- Clockwork Orange .”

“It’s the show’s ultimate statement about the family, because we’re absolutely brutalizing with each other, while there’s also no mistaking that we love each other deeply,” she said.

22. Kevin Costner thought the show was "neat."

There’s a famous scene in Truth or Dare in which Madonna parties with other celebs after a Los Angeles show. Among them is Kevin Costner, who tells Madonna he found the show “neat.” It’s an amazing moment, and Madonna is predictably incensed that Costner would use that adjective to describe her. “No one’s ever described me quite that way,” she tells him. Later, she decrees “Anybody who says my show was ‘neat’ has to go.”

Costner would forgive the diss in 2007.

23. Truth or Dare was a success, too.

The documentary about Blond Ambition was released in 1991. It cost $4.5 million to make. It earned $29 million. Sure, Madonna was nominated for a Razzie for Worst Actress – for playing herself, no less – but she had piles of money with which to console herself.

24. It was parodied twice.

Truth or Dare – and by extension, Blond Ambition – were skewered two times, by Julie Brown in Medusa: Dare to Be Truthful and by English comedians Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders in In Bed with French and Saunders . We’d like to think Madge took it all in stride.

25. It essentially made The Immaculate Collection happen.

The tour concluded in August 1990. Everyone was all “Wow, Madonna has an amazing library of hits.” In November 1990, her first greatest hits collection, The Immaculate Collection , was released. You do the math.

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'A Freudian nightmare': Madonna's Blond Ambition tour turns 30

Three decades on, the controversy-courting concert tour is still shaping the ways female artists express their sexuality

• Modern Toss on Blond Ambition tour ...

I n Toronto, Madonna simulated masturbation on a velvet bed under the watchful eye of the Canadian police, who threatened her with arrest if her show went ahead. In Italy, unions called for a general strike if Madonna performed, and Pope John Paul II declared her concert “one of the most satanic shows in the history of humanity”. The Blond Ambition tour , which turned 30 years old last month, remains among the most controversial tours of all time.

It seems bizarre now that so much fuss was made over a little fake frotting and a few gyrating nuns. But this was 1990, when Kylie Minogue was still performing in straw hats, Bananarama were deemed dangerous and the gossip pages raged over Annie Lennox singing Would I Lie to You in a bra. Into this age of relative wholesomeness landed Blond Ambition Madonna , on a mission to combine fashion, rock, Broadway theatricality and performance art, to “be provocative” and “break useless taboos”. Mission accomplished. Jean Paul Gaultier’s famous conical corset has been described as a “Freudian nightmare”, a generation of teenagers asked their parents what S&M stood for, and the coy suggestiveness of the live pop spectacle was blown wide open.

The themed set-pieces – religion, German expressionism, art deco, Madge’s rubbish new movie Dick Tracy – set a new bar for confrontational theatricality that only greater shock tactics could ever challenge. Marilyn Manson ’s onstage Bible shredding is straight out of the “Madonna 90” guidebook, and with her firework bras, stage blood and copious dry-humping, Lady Gaga looks as if she was conceived at a Blond Ambition gig. But the key taboo Madonna broke that summer was that of feminine sexuality as strength rather than titillation, as something owned by the artist not cashed in by the svengalis. That’s what gave us SexKylie , “ zig-a-zig-AH! ”, Wrecking Ball -era Miley and Nicki Minaj’s bottom-obsessed Anaconda . It’s one of the reasons female artists feel comfortable singing about sex and desire today.

Sex sells, though, and more sex sells more. Over the decades, overt sexuality became the expected – nay, contractual – pop norm. Attention-grabbing boundaries were pushed to their limits, and artists were pressured to play this new, ever raunchier game. Enter Billie Eilish, defiantly covered, mocking the uber-sexualised expectations of modern pop with a film of her stripping off beneath blackened water: “If I wear more, if I wear less, who decides what that makes me?” she intones, shaming the bodyshamers and staring out the monetisable male gaze. By asserting ownership of her body she is not re-establishing any old taboos, she’s breaking the oldest one of all – subservience. Her image, her body, her art, her rules. Which was Madonna’s point all along.

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Strike a pose: madonna’s “vogue” dancers recall blond ambition tour & gay life in the ’90s.

By Richy Rosario

Richy Rosario

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In 1990, Madonna embarked on her Blond Ambition World Tour. She trekked from Japan to Europe to North America, challenging societal views on sexuality while entertaining the masses. She pushed the envelope with wildly provocative dance numbers and concert themes, yet never failed to promote safe sex. “You know you never really get to know a guy until you ask them to wear a rubber,” she unapologetically said to a crowd in Japan, before jumping into her set of “Get Into The Groove.”

Due to the tour’s highly sexualized and risqué acts, she faced various death threats, ban threats from the Vatican, and warnings of arrest. However controversial, there was no denying the pop star was on a journey to put a human face on the gay community and empower female sexuality.

After the tour in 1991, came Truth or Dare , a behind-the-scenes documentary of the show, which also chronicled the lives of seven of Madonna’s back up dancers—Luis Camacho, Oliver Grumes III, Salim Gauwloos, Jose Gutierez, Kevin Stea, Gabriel Trupin, and Carlton Wilborn.

“You see the dancers that I work with and little bits and pieces of their life,”  said Madonna during an interview on  Good Morning America  circa 1991. “I deal with a lot of  issues… and what I think to be a big problem in the United States and that is homophobia. There is a real big section in the movie devoted to that. These things exist in life. I’m only presenting life to people. I’m not presenting anything that they are not exposed to in everyday life, but maybe they don’t want to deal with it. If you kept putting something in somebody’s face eventually maybe they can come to terms with it.”

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Twenty-five years later, these dancers are telling their own narrative (with the exception of Trupin, who died in 1995 at 26, due to complications from AIDS) in Strike A Pose , a Tribeca Film Festival documentary created by Ester Goud and Reijer Zwaan. The film, which had its grand North American debut on April 15, explores the truth behind everything that happened on tour and in the aftermath of the release of Truth of Dare. Three of the dancers — Stea, Trupin and Grumes — sued Madonna for the film due to issues with contracting and for publicly showcasing their homosexual identities, a huge issue for Trupin at the time. Trupin’s mother echoes his feelings about Truth or Dare in the recently-premiered  Strike A Pose. “[It’s] not a statement that he wanted to make. It was Madonna’s statement,” she said of her son’s sexuality.

The documentary also sheds light on how the tour first got started, with Madonna recruiting a pair of Latino dancers from New York City: Luis Camacho of Puerto Rican descent and Jose Gutierez of Dominican descent. Together, they choreographed her famous “Vogue” video.

Both were kids from the underground voguing scene and part of the House of Extravaganza, a crew of the New York ballroom scene.  Camacho and Gutierez were dance majors at Fiorello H. La Guardia High School Of Music And Performing Arts, and with a little hard work and a serendipitous encounter, they got the job.

“It’s crazy when you have this person give you this opportunity and we really didn’t work for it,” Jose muses. “It wasn’t a job that we were training for, like most dancers do.” Prior to dancing with Madonna at just 18, Jose trained at Eliot Feld Ballet Tech School since the third grade and traveled to Brazil and Japan with the House of Extravaganza.

On a bright spring day, Luis and Jose are holding court in a pressroom on the second floor of The Smyth Hotel. They discuss their experiences with Madge, the tour, Strike The Pose and the impact Truth Or Dare had on the gay community. “The first film gave us an opportunity to be express ourselves,” says Luis.“This new movie gave us an opportunity to express ourselves in a different light.”

VIBE VIVA: What was it like being a gay Latino in the early ’90s? Jose: At the time it was crazy because there was a lot of a crime in the streets. Being gay wasn’t accepted as it is today, and I was very rebellious at a young age.  [Laughs]  So growing up then, even though what was around me was very distracting I managed to try to stay focused on my dancing. I’m from the Lower East Side—my family came from nothing really, they migrated here from the Dominican Republic. [Dancing] was a way to get out of the ghetto.

The gay scene opened my eyes to so many artistic things, and that also helped me develop as an artist. I was more dedicated as a kid, growing up I loved to dance, but other than that it was very hard growing up in the ghetto, trying to stay focused when everything around is drug deals and stuff like that. I came out at a very young age to the club scene, and that was my escape where I got to dance, perform and travel.

So were you part of the famous ballroom scene voguing documentary Paris is Burning ? Jose: Yes, oh my god I was a baby! I was 16-years old. I remember sneaking off for a weekend to Washington, D.C. to go compete at a ball. I snuck away without telling my mom. And that was a scene from Paris is Burning . I remember thinking to myself ‘I want to win, so I’m trying to get everything in there.’ I was voguing at the speed of light, ’cause I didn’t want to lose.  [Laughs] Take me back to that night when you and Luis auditioned for Madonna at the club? Jose: It was in club Sound Factory. A mutual friend of ours, Madonna’s make-up artist Debi Bazar, was like ‘Madonna’s coming she’s looking for dancers soon, and I told her about you guys, you have to meet her.’  In situations like that, you’re always like ‘yeah yeah, whatever.’ And so we submitted a video of us dancing with the whole House of Extravaganza.

One night we walk into the club, and we see Debi and she was like ‘Come here I want you to meet somebody.’ She introduced me right there to Madonna. I remember being in awe. She said, ‘Hey, I heard a lot about you guys, you guys do this vogue thing and I want to see.’ I was still stuck ’cause I remember thinking ‘you want us to show you now in the club? And she was like ‘Yeah, right now.’

I was always fashionably inclined, I was done up in this crazy Gaultier outfit. And I was like ‘how do you want me to dance like this?’ Her bodyguard took off his pants and gave them to me in the VIP bathroom. I couldn’t believe I was wearing her bodyguards’ pants; he was this huge dude. But I managed and practically auditioned on the spot. And once the club got wind that she was there, the whole club turned into an audition. She said ‘Sit here with me,’ to me and Luis. ‘And let’s watch these guys, tell me what you think.’

We were there for at least two hours, then she invited us to the actual audition. We beat out 7,000 dancers. It was crazy, because she thought that I was just an underground dancer—a voguer from the gay community. She didn’t know that I was 10 years into training. So she was like ‘Oh I want you to come and do the “Vogue” video, but I don’t know if I’m going to take you on tour, because there are other forms of dance that you have to be able to do.’ Then when she saw me she said ‘I didn’t know you can do all of that.’ I was like ‘You didn’t ask me’.  [Laughs]

“DATHROBACK” A photo posted by INtheNAMEoftheFATHER(J🙏🏾SE) (@fatherjose.xtravaganza) on Dec 18, 2014 at 1:43pm PST

Did you feel any pressure to do well in the video for “Vogue”? Jose: Oh yeah! We wanted show good work coming from the community—especially on a main stage for the world to see. We wanted to deliver the goods.

What was that first night like on tour? Jose: The minute she came up on a lift and they saw a little bit of a hair, everyone just went crazy. And your heart is beating out of your chest. I remember that was the first moment in time I was like, ‘Oh sh*t is real’ And when you hear them screaming your name, at 18-years old, you’re like ‘They are screaming for me?’ It was like you just want to jump out into the crowd—such a great feeling.

How did it feel like when Truth or Dare came out? Jose: It was very overwhelming for me at the time. I didn’t set out to move people; you’re so young that you don’t realize that. You don’t think that people are like ‘Oh my god Truth or Dare saved my life.’ Today, I still get ‘Watching that movie, saved my life, seeing you being so open and comfortable made me want to come out to my family.’ That to me is amazing cause at that age, you don’t set out to do any of that. You’re not looking to be a role model, you’re just looking to live in that moment. That’s why I think I didn’t realize till much later what I had accomplished. I was just there to dance, and I loved what I was doing. I was just a young kid expressing my art. I’m so glad I was able to touch and move people. The fact that people still appreciate it 26 years later is amazing. Why do you think the ’90s needed this? Jose: Because it was a time where we needed something new. The ’90s just came in and being part of the community and part of the scene—with the rise of pop art, I think they needed somebody like Madonna to put the community on the map. [She] opened up people’s eyes to so many things that are going on in the world. It’s here: boys like each other, we’re gay, we’re human, we’re talented.

I think it played a major part in the early ’90s because you never seen anything like it. That was before reality shows, now you see it like nothing. But back then to see two boys kissing was overwhelming, but it was happening. I can’t even imagine someone being not proud of who they are. We have to be proud of who we are, and everybody is somebody. We are all here for a reason. And ever since I was a kid I always remembered that: ‘You’re gay, but you are special.’

Truth or Dare showcased the love Madonna had for you guys. How would you define your relationship with her back then?  Jose : I didn’t know how to take it. I was so young, and yeah I loved the love. She was almost like a mother to us.

Luis: This was our first big mainstream thing. We were quote in quote kings of the underground with House of Extravaganza. But this crossover was the first to us. She really took to us. By the time we got to Los Angeles and started working we were really tight. We felt very akin to her. She was really loving towards to us.

Oh yea!!!”almost forgot.”HOPE ALL YALL HAD A WONDERFUL FOURTH O JULY WKND!!!!” A photo posted by INtheNAMEoftheFATHER(J🙏🏾SE) (@fatherjose.xtravaganza) on Jul 7, 2014 at 1:25pm PDT

Can you describe to me a different side of Madonna that you guys were privy to? Jose: I saw such an emotional side. I thought I was going to lose my job because I got her so upset, to the point where she was crying. The tour was almost ending and we got into a conversation, and she was promising us to continue with a record deal, and performing at the MTV Awards. And I sad, ‘You’re a liar, we’re not going to see you again.’ I said ‘Oh please, you’re just gong to forget about us.’

It really hurt her feelings. And she just kicked me out of her dressing room. So that was a moment for me that I never saw—cause you think, ‘When this is over you’re going to move on.’ She just started crying and she said, ‘Just get out of my room.’ She kicked me out.

Luis: She honestly was really loving and motherly to us. But besides that, she was an around-the-way girl when there weren’t any cameras around. She was really chill, relaxed and we hung out.

What was it like adjusting  after you guys got back home from tour? Luis : The phone wasn’t there for room service!   [ Laughs]

Jose: It was a rude awakening. You’re spoiled with this lifestyle. As a kid you can easily adapt to all of that. I hated home, I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t want to be in my mom’s house. My mother looked at me like ‘Calm down before I smack you down.’ [Laughs]

Luis: Even though we didn’t come back to the situation we were accustomed to, we came back with so much knowledge. Jose, in Strike A Pose, your mother mentions her disappointment because you didn’t continue with your dancing career. Why didn’t you keep going after working with Madonna? Jose: I got distracted for a moment and I hid for a while. A lot my friends started dying when AIDS began to hit and I lost grip of a lot of things. I was still so young and I didn’t know how to deal with everything. All my family and friends that we had looked up to passed on. I was also caught up in messy relationships. Not to say that I regret anything, it made me who I am today, but I think that all of that was happening so fast. There were times where I had three or four friends in the hospital dying at 18-years old and nobody knew where it was coming from. It became very hard, and you do things that you wouldn’t normally do because you feel cheated and you walk around bitter. I did that for a while. I was getting so much love and adoration, but I didn’t see any of that stuff. What are your fondest memories of Gabriel? Luis: He was never upset about anything.

Jose: He was always smiling—so sweet.

Luis: He was such a good-natured person. We never came across someone like that, especially us—we came from a lion’s den. We come from this background of either you’re fierce or you’re not. Gabriel was this little ball of sunshine and light.

How did you guys feel about the lawsuit Kevin, Oliver and Gabriel filed? Luis: We were in the middle of doing a record deal, so we really didn’t want to get too involved with what was going on. At that time we didn’t understand why.

Jose: It divided us. Luis: They had something in their contract from their agency that they were not honoring. Do you guys understand why Gabriel did it? Luis: I understand why he did it, but that wasn’t our situation. We were out and proud already. Do I understand why he wanted out the movie? Yes. Do I understand why she would want him in the movie? Yes.

How does it feel like not having a relationship with Madonna now? Jose: Sometimes it feels weird, because you like to think that these moments you share with a person aren’t just business. There are feelings involved. I know she thinks the same. Whatever the reason is, she has moved on. Life happens and she is a celebrity as well. I don’t expect her to come knocking on my door, but I definitely miss her on a personal level. It doesn’t have to be gig. It was more than that.

How do you feel about critics who say Madonna hasn’t given people of color the proper recognition for starting the vogue dancing movement? Jose: She took two of our own and allowed us to take it all over the world. This vogue thing needed somebody like her.

If you can give your younger selves advice what would it be? Luis: To be more focused

Jose: Be more present. Do you guys have any regrets? Luis : I don’t regret anything.

Jose: Sometimes. I always say that everything that we did has made us who we are today. No I wouldn’t change anything that happened. We would do everything the same way. [But] just be more focused like Luis said.

Luis: If could have went to Los Angeles afterwards and gotten represented, I would’ve probably done that.

What are you guys doing now? Luis : I own a show in Palm Springs, it’s called “Carnival Cabaret,” and it’s a female impersonator show. I choreograph for it, but I’m not in the show. And I’m writing a memoir right now, too.

Jose: I’m working with the kids at The Door , an organization dedicated to helping youth. I just did a project with Baz Luhrmann and Jaden Smith, which is coming out on Netflix. It’s called The Get Down . I was on it as a consulting choreographer, and they asked me to be in the project. I also just got back from Sweden, from teaching a workshop there— still trying to keep dancing.

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Meet the Dancers Who Vogued Their Way Onto Madonna’s Blond Ambition Tour in ‘Strike a Pose’ Doc

The title for Ester Gould and Reijer Zwaan’s documentary, Strike a Pose , almost demands you finish the iconic line: “there’s nothing to it.” Madonna’s “Vogue” is as perfect an introduction to this film’s interests as anything else not least because it should ultimately conjure up in your head the dancers alongside the Queen of Pop in the David Fincher video. And of course, there’s no way of talking about those dance moves and that black and white video without invoking José Gutiérrez and Luis Camacho (both of the Xtravaganza house in New York) — it was the two of them, a couple back then, who choreographed the video and who had introduced the Material Girl onto the ballroom scene where voguing was thriving in the late 80s.

José and Luis would go on to join Madonna’s Blond Ambition tour as well as be part of the infamous 1991 Madonna: Truth or Dare documentary which gave fans a titillating look at what went down behind close doors during that scandalous tour. The dancers are back in the spotlight as part of Gould and Zwaan’s documentary which catches us up with Madonna’s male dancers from that tour and explores what each of them have been up to since having been thrown into the limelight alongside one of the most influential pop artists of the twentieth century.

“It was such a gift,” Luis tells me. “You know, we were two Latin kids from, I don’t want to say ‘the ghetto,’ but not the best part of town. And for both of us to have this opportunity as Latinos, was major. We didn’t feel that at the time but looking back, it was such a great opportunity.”

On paper, Strike a Pose may sound like Truth or Dare at 25: Where Are They Now? , a type of Behind the Music special that would nevertheless keep the Queen of Pop as the gravitational force of the six remaining male dancers (the seventh, Gabriel Trupin, still referred to as Madonna’s favorite, passed away from AIDS in the mid 90s). That’s what made both Latino dancers hesitate about joining the project. Luis outright admitted that he ignored the original email that told him of the project; he thought it might be the type of interview requests he’d been happily avoiding all these years: “I mean, how many times can you answer the question, ‘Is she a bitch or not?’”

José, the last one to agree to come on board, was equally wary. Persuaded by fellow dancers, Kevin Stea and Salim ‘Slam’ Gauwloos — who’d already been in talks with the Dutch pair — both eventually caved and met with the directing duo. Coasts apart (Luis now lives in sunny LA, José still lives in NYC), they were won over by the project. The film, they understood, would be about all of them not her, “She-Who-Shall-Remain-Nameless,” Luis quipped. “Yes we miss her, and we think about her,” José admitted. “I’m sure she does as well. But we’ve all moved on. We didn’t want it to seem like a big Madonna bash,” he told me.

“You know, we were two Latin kids from, I don’t want to say ‘the ghetto,’ but not the best part of town. And for both of us to have this opportunity as Latinos, was major.”

While Madonna is center stage (quite literally) at the start of the film, in clips from the tour and in archival footage, she very quickly cedes the screen to her dancers. Finally freed from being in the background, these men are put in the spotlight and as the film unfolds, you can see them basking and straining under its glare. Secrets they’d kept from each other (and from themselves) in the intervening decades become the central focus of the film. We hear tales of addiction and recovery, of then-unspeakable diagnoses and brave struggles, of career downturns and resilient comebacks. Strike a Pose is particularly touching in its depiction of middle-aged dancers who all struggled to come down from the career and addictive high of having traveled the world in one of the most talked about tours of all time.

One of the most affecting scenes in the film comes courtesy of José’s mother. Seated at her home, in the apartment where he grew up (“Did you see the plastic coverings over the sofas?” he asked me while fighting back laughter, “She loves them!”) he’s tasked with translating as his mom explains to Ester and Reijer off-camera that she’s always been disappointed that her son didn’t turn the momentum he’d had back then into a more successful career. She wishes he’d have made enough money to at least buy her a house. She says so neither with cruelty nor candor. “I never knew she still felt like that!” he confessed on the phone. “You know, the last time I’d heard anything like that was 25 years ago!” It’s clear watching the clip that the interview had dredged up a lot of unspoken stuff between them and in the English-Spanish back and forth, we gather that she’s none the wiser about the “dark times” that her son lived through following his success in the early 90s.

Luis speaks more openly about his own dark times in the film. His road to recovery from drugs and alcoholism, “the biggest learning experience” of his life, has allowed him to approach Strike a Pose with a more level head, embracing the opportunity to tell his story and perhaps yet again offer a voice of advice and caution to those watching. He admits he was too young a boy when he went on tour; he cackles over the phone remembering how unabashed he was in front of the Truth or Dare cameras. “I mean, I was this kid from the Lower East Side. I always dreamt of being in that position. I’d ask, what do you want me to do? What do you want me to say?” What he couldn’t have known back then is how much of an impact that documentary would still have. As José put it, you never set out to move a nation, but the correspondence him and the other dancers keep getting suggest they’ve become inadvertent role models in their own right.

It may have taken 25 years to get the band back together, but they are intent on making the most of it. Both teased that the group of boys have big things planned for the future while José seemed just as excited to talk about his involvement in Baz Luhrmann’s upcoming Netflix series The Get Down where he served as consultant and got to work alongside Jayden Smith (“A very special boy. So ahead of his time! So free-spirited”). He was proud to say that Luhrmann had been so impressed with him that he’d actually gotten him in front of the camera for some scenes. Even Australian visionaries, it seems, cannot help but see what’s made Father José Xtravaganza, as he’s known in the ballroom scene, an icon in his own right.

Strike a Pose played at t he Tribeca Film Festival from April 13 – 24, 2016. We partnered with Tribeca to give you a behind-the-scenes look at the Latino talent at this year’s fest. Follow our coverage on remezcla.com and tribecafilm.com .

You can now stream the documentary on Netflix .

REVIEW: Empress Of Embodies Hollywood’s Glitz & Glam on Daring New Album

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The Story Behind Madonna’s Iconic Jean Paul Gaultier Cone Bra

By Liam Hess

On the first night of Madonna ’s Blond Ambition tour, held in April 1990 in Chiba, Japan, few in the audience could have prepared themselves for the spectacle about to unfold. With its $2 million dollar stage set, explosive choreography by voguing legends from the New York City ballroom scene, and headline-grabbing aesthetic fusion of Catholic imagery and BDSM, the show solidified Madonna’s position at the top of music’s pantheon. In less than two hours, she was no longer just a pop star—she had graduated to become a fully-fledged pop culture icon.

For her most avid fans, though, it was less of a surprise: Madonna was merely following up on the string of controversies that accompanied her latest album, Like a Prayer , a year earlier. A $5 million sponsorship deal with Pepsi was swiftly pulled after she debuted the video for her lead single, “Like a Prayer,” the plot of which implicitly drew a link between racial injustice and organized religion. Featuring Ku Klux Klan-style burning crosses and Madonna receiving the stigmata, it led to a direct call from the Vatican to boycott Pepsi and its subsidiaries. “Art should be controversial, and that’s all there is to it,” Madonna told the New York Times with nonchalance in the lead-up to the album’s release. (This laid-back response may have been due to the fact that Pepsi, eager to extricate themselves from the kerfuffle, let Madonna keep the $5 million check.)

Yet outside of the pearl-clutching backlash that followed the tour’s debut, the image that would come to define it was far more modest, arriving within the first few minutes of the show. Sporting an artfully slashed pinstripe suit, Madonna levitated to the stage on a hydraulic platform. She held a monocle hanging off her necklace up to her eye, before launching into “Express Yourself.” Then, moments later, she and her backup dancers whipped off their jackets to reveal something a little more sexy.

The pink conical bra that Madonna wore underneath is so embedded within the canon of both pop music and fashion that it now requires little introduction. Designed by Jean Paul Gaultier, who Madonna personally requested to create the costumes for the tour (she even handwrote him a letter to express her admiration for his humorous take on fashion), the look was the product of many months of collaboration, with fittings taking place both in New York and Gaultier’s ateliers in Paris.

“When Madonna first called me in 1989, it was two days before my ready-to-wear show, and I thought my assistant was joking,” said Gaultier in a 2001 interview with the New York Times . “I was a big fan. She knew what she wanted—a pinstripe suit, the feminine corsetry. Madonna likes my clothes because they combine the masculine and the feminine.” Indeed, it was this gender-bending spirit that made the tour’s visuals so memorable; just take her male dancers, who threw flamboyant shapes while sporting Tom of Finland-esque leather lace-back tops paired with Bob Fosse bowler hats. (The less glamorous side of which was explored memorably in the 2016 documentary Strike a Pose , where these dancers, many of whom were living with HIV/AIDS, saw their hopes and aspirations either realized or heartbreakingly thwarted.)

By Lorena Meouchi

By Leah Faye Cooper

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What made Madonna’s take on this undergarment truly subversive, though, was its nuances. The cone bra grabbed the public’s attention for the way in which it rebelled against the narrow definition of the beautiful female body that, for so many centuries, had been dictated by corsetry’s body-morphing strictures. Sure, designers like Vivienne Westwood had also spent the ’80s exploring a more freeing, playful take on the corset, but Gaultier’s version—first debuted on the runway in 1987 before being adapted for the Blond Ambition tour—took the piece and made it feel defiant, aggressive even. In place of the soft curves the corset was supposed to shape, the female anatomy became a spiky, phallic weapon, one that Madonna celebrated by exerting her dominance, sexual or otherwise, over the dancers she frolicked with across her one-and-a-half-hour musical extravaganza. This was a pop star in control, and her outfits told the story before she even opened her mouth to sing, or began gyrating wildly across the stage (or simulated masturbation, in a sequence that almost resulted in her Toronto leg of the tour being shut down).

Gaultier would go on to collaborate with Madonna on multiple occasions, including a memorable appearance at Gaultier’s 1992 AIDS fundraising gala in support of amFAR, where she walked the runway in Los Angeles before dropping her jacket to reveal a bondage-inspired harness top that left her breasts fully exposed. “I love Madonna,” Gaultier added in his New York Times interview. “She’s the only woman I ever asked to marry me. She said no, of course, but every time she asks me to work on her shows, I can’t say no.” Thirty years after making its first debut, the cone bra is more than just a part of fashion history, or an artefact hanging in a museum. Its legacy lies in the very real way in which it has encouraged generations of female pop performers in Madonna’s wake to channel their sexuality through the outfits they choose to wear without shame, and on their own terms. To paraphrase Gaultier, who could say no to that?

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• News ✖ Discussion

Your Favorite Madonna Tour Hair

By Voguerista , November 21, 2019 in News ✖ Discussion

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Voguerista 11,866.

What is your favorite Madonna Tour hair? Here is my absolute favorite. I love when she wears tight curls and when they bounce around as she dances....

• Gabocicco , somethingscomingover , geert and 5 others

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nito84bcn 2,773

I loved when she had this geisha look / hair for Nothing really matters promotion. (Also used at Drowned World Tour 2001). I was obsessed back in the day and for me it's one of her best ones hair styles!

• Voguerista , Levon , Semtex1 and 2 others

PWCCA 2,498

Blond Ambition... both the curls and the ponytail. Sheer perfection

Guest Ashley

You can't beat the blonde perm bob she had for BAT. 

The runner up IMO is the Varla Faster Pussy Cat Kill Kill look she had for 'Transgression' section of MDNA.

geert 3,074

Blond Ambition: curls and ponytail

• rlittler81 , Gabocicco , Voguerista and 3 others

louis.exe 1,992

For me it's the pixie cut she had on girlie show tour

• Voguerista , blondboi559 , Levon and 3 others
• Popular Post

Enrico 15,837

Although we probably all agree that nothing can beat the BAT iconic looks - both ponytail and curly hair - I love the one night only hairdo fro Birmingham RHT:

• blondboi559 , Ekans , Voguerista and 7 others

Guest Nobody Knows Me

Blond Ambition World Tour ponytail and the opening segment of The MDNA Tour are probably my favourite tour looks from her. 

skyfitswim 906

1 blond ambition tour both  curls and ponny tail hair 

2 re invention look ( so natural )

3 confessions tour 

4 rebel heart 

the worsed hair styles for a tour , who's that girl , girlie show and drowned world tour 

• Voguerista and Levon

Paulo MDNA Tour 1,810

this hair, this body, this tour... <3 

• somethingscomingover , Voguerista , DiegoLCL and 5 others

poserdemadonna 1,630

somethingscomingover 428

The Girlie Show pixie is one of my favourite M haircuts of all time. I also like her hair for the Re-Invention Tour, Drowned World Tour and the MDNA Tour.

• Levon , Voguerista and Semtex1

cosmicarlo818 2,010

So is no one is gonna mention the fabulous Who’s That Girl Tour hair style!? Never mind — ME! My absolute favorite hairstyle!  

Followed by the super straightened, cyber-punk hairstyle during most of the Drowned World Tour shows! 

Levon 2,225

Pixie is one of my (many) favourites

• Semtex1 , Voguerista , louis.exe and 2 others
• 7 months later...

On 11/24/2019 at 4:55 PM, Levon said: Pixie is one of my (many) favourites    

• Semtex1 , Levon and Voguerista

2 hours ago, Ian said: she looks amazing here

Her eyes and make up so beautiful too! 

On 11/22/2019 at 11:24 PM, godx said: Probably on my own with this one 

I loved it long and wavy like this too!

RUADJAI 15,062

On 11/22/2019 at 2:19 AM, Nobody Knows Me said: On 11/24/2019 at 2:55 PM, Levon said:

#STOPPHOTOSHOPPINGMADONNA

#THISISHERFACE

I cheated a bit... 

I really wish this hair/whole look was in the Madame X show. It's so beautiful to me. 

13 minutes ago, RUADJAI said: #THISISHERFACE

1 hour ago, RUADJAI said: #STOPPHOTOSHOPPINGMADONNA

17 minutes ago, Nobody Knows Me said: I’m sorry, I remember being in a rush when I posted that and it was the first image that appeared on google 

MDNA22 1,201

Confessions 

Blond Ambition  - so iconic both the ponytail and the curls 

Gabocicco 1,321

Blond Ambition World Tour ponytail is my favorite but watching her descend the stairs on the Virgin Tour, she blew my head off with tremendous sensuality and beauty, I loved that hairstyle like disheveled, even from the Virgin Tour to the BAT marked my life forever as her loyal fan. That must be why I love those looks and they are my favorites forever.

• RUADJAI , Semtex1 and Levon

Aiwa08 16,232

For me, Barcelona Blond Ambition Tour. It's identical to the Express Yourself video.

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Blond Ambition Tour - Setlist

The setlist of the Blond Ambition Tour promoted her Like A Prayer and I'm Breathless albums. It was also the first time Madonna worked with segments on her tour.

Metropolis Segment

Religious segment, dick tracy segment, art deco segment.

StarsInsider

Remember these iconic outfits from music history?

Posted: 24 November 2023 | Last updated: 1 May 2024

These iconic outifts have become synonymous with the artists themselves, leaving a lasting impression even as their popularity may fluctuate. Take a look at this gallery showcasing the most remarkable and memorable outfits worn by beloved musicians on stage.

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The cone bustier, designed by Jean-Paul Gaultier, gained fame during Madonna's Blonde Ambition World Tour.

ABBA's style epitomized the 1970s disco period.

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The Beatles

Paul McCartney came up with the idea for this iconic 1967 outfit worn by the marching band on the 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band' album. It was inspired by an Edwardian military band.

Dolly Parton

Parton has been sporting sparkling cowgirl outfits and voluminous hairstyles throughout her career. There's no one like Dolly! 

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Michael Jackson

There are numerous options to consider when it comes to Michael Jackson, ranging from the classic suit and fedora with a downturned brim, to this extravagant military jacket worn by the pop star during the Dangerous Tour.

The red and black 'Thriller' jacket has consistently remained iconic, along with Jackson's impressive dance moves, of course.

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Britney Spears

The singer has worn a variety of iconic outfits throughout her career. From the famous tight red latex jumpsuit during the 'Oops!... I did it again' era, to the live snake at the 2001 MTV VMAs, to this very '90s ensemble.

Amy Winehouse

Winehouse's distinctive mile-high beehive, pinup dresses, and thick eyeliner were iconic both on and offstage.

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David Bowie

The alien glam-rock style of Ziggy Stardust  influenced a whole generation, and contributed to the birth of the "cult of Bowie."

Spice Girls

The incredible girl band is known for their iconic outfits, such as Mel B's cat ears and Geri Halliwell's unforgettable Union Jack Gucci mini-dress.

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It's difficult to forget the spikes, platform boots, hair, and monochromatic makeup this band has been disguised in for decades.

Angus Young (AC/DC)

Very few adult men can rock a schoolboy's uniform the way Angus Young can. 

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Prince's iconic fashion choices, including his abundance of V-necks, shimmer, and sparkle, are remembered fondly by fans. However, it is his high-collared purple suit, ruffled white shirt, and curly-haired look from the 'Purple Rain'-era that truly holds a special place in their hearts.

Stevie Nicks

The Fleetwood Mac singer's witchy style has often been imitated, but rarely pulled off so well.

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The pop star has an abundance of different appearances, ranging from wearing raw meat to performing beneath a canopy of human hair to unveiling her male alter ego, Joe Calderone, at the 2011 MTV VMAs.

The Guns N’ Roses musician maintains his old iconic look of a thick red bandanna, clothes littered with random graphics, a shirt hanging from his waist, and shades.

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The Slash costume has remained a popular choice for Halloween due to its association with the big hair and top hat look. Pair up with a friend dressed as Axl Rose to rock this iconic duo!

The Jackson 5

Bell-bottoms, platform boots, large collars, and a highly gifted family.

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The celebrity has worn various outfits featuring fruit, whipped cream, dice, sports gear, marching band costumes, cupcakes, and even movie reels with popcorn.

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Moscow Metro

The Moscow Metro Tour is included in most guided tours’ itineraries. Opened in 1935, under Stalin’s regime, the metro was not only meant to solve transport problems, but also was hailed as “a people’s palace”. Every station you will see during your Moscow metro tour looks like a palace room. There are bright paintings, mosaics, stained glass, bronze statues… Our Moscow metro tour includes the most impressive stations best architects and designers worked at - Ploshchad Revolutsii, Mayakovskaya, Komsomolskaya, Kievskaya, Novoslobodskaya and some others.

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The guide will not only help you navigate the metro, but will also provide you with fascinating background tales for the images you see and a history of each station.

And there some stories to be told during the Moscow metro tour! The deepest station - Park Pobedy - is 84 metres under the ground with the world longest escalator of 140 meters. Parts of the so-called Metro-2, a secret strategic system of underground tunnels, was used for its construction.

During the Second World War the metro itself became a strategic asset: it was turned into the city's biggest bomb-shelter and one of the stations even became a library. 217 children were born here in 1941-1942! The metro is the most effective means of transport in the capital.

There are almost 200 stations 196 at the moment and trains run every 90 seconds! The guide of your Moscow metro tour can explain to you how to buy tickets and find your way if you plan to get around by yourself.

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Tour of famous Moscow Metro. Explore the Underground World! (2 hours)

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On this tour you take in some of Moscow's most important and highly decorated stations. Carrying up to 7 million passengers a day and covering almost the entire city, the Moscow Metro is one of the most extensive mass transit systems in the world. It's famous for the fine examples of social-realism which decorate many of its stations.

Visit some of the most important stations and get the chance to admire spectacular baroque-style ceilings, marble statues, busts of Communist heroes, stained glass windows, and ceiling mosaics depicting the bright Soviet future. Visit the most remarkable stations like Komsomolskaya, Kurskaya, Kievskaya and others, with the experienced guide who will bring you a full insight into their fascinating history.

• Tour of Moscow's Metro system visiting beautifully decorated key stations on the network.
• System that carries more than 7 million passengers per day
• Views of the most opulently designed tunnels & platforms
• Significance to the country—known as the “People's Palace”
• History & stories relayed by an expert local guide

If you wonder why the Moscow metro is considered one the most beautiful in the world, this tour is made for you!

Important info

Ask a travel expert.

• Professional English-speaking guide assistance. Other languages upon request (additional charge may apply)
• Hotel pick-up and drop-off
• Personal expenses
• Gratuities (optional)
• Food and drinks
• Confirmation will be received at time of booking
• Children must be accompanied by an adult

Departure and return point: nearest metro station to your central Moscow hotel  

Departure time:  flexible

Sights included in program

Thanks ! We will reply you in less than 24 hours (usually within 1-2 hours) .

Our flexible payment options allow you to pay 20% of a deposit first and the remaining 80% in 14 days prior to your tour date - payment can be done both online or over the phone. This gives you the peace of mind knowing your spaces are booked on the tours and that you do not miss out on making the most of your time in Russia.

Also you get the best, top-rated and most experienced and knowledgeable hand-picked tour guide appointed on a priority basis. In our experience, exceptional travel experiences are almost always delivered by exceptional people. With that in mind, we utilize a comprehensive approach to select and employ the best tour guides only. Multilingual and well travelled, each possesses deep insight into the diverse attractions and cultural patterns throughout the region. With us guides undergo a rigorous selection process, achieving outstanding knowledge of local culture and language. Rest assured that the best tour guides only will be working on the tours to give you excellent opportunity to explore the best of the sights during both short and long-term stay in Russia.

Once you complete your reservation, we will send you a booking confirmation email. As the day of the tour approaches, our logistics team will provide you with all relevant information for your tour.

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Moscow Metro Tour - With Ratings

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Moscow Metro Tour

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Tour Information

Key Details

• Free Cancellation
• Duration: 1 Hr 30 Mins
• Language: English
• Departure Details : Get to the Biblioteka imeni Lenina (Lenin's Library, Red Line) or Alexandrovsky Sad (Alexander Garden, Light Blue Line) metro station. Use any exit. Find the Kutafia Tower of the Kremlin. The guide .. read more

The Moscow Metro has a long history to it. Also, the city has an extremely beautiful subway. It is very well maintained and is also extremely decorated. Each station and spot has a different artistic aspect to it. On this tour, experience the efficiency of Moscow Metro.

• Roam around the Revolution Square, with magnificent sculptures of the Soviet people
• Visit the Kurskaya Station Lobby, the Hall of Fame of the WWII
• Be awestruck at the Komsomolskaya , with impressive mural mosaics of Russian glorious victories
• See the artistic side of Novoslobodskaya , with the stained glass, although under the ground.

Know More about this tour

Take our Moscow Metro Tour and discover why our subway is recognized as the most beautiful in the world!

"They used to have palaces for kings, we are going to build palaces for the people!" said one of the main architects of the Soviet subway.

With us you will see the most beautiful metro stations in Moscow built under Stalin: Komsomolskaya, Revolution square, Novoslobodskaya, Mayakovskaya. Our guide will tell fascinating stories and secrets hidden underground, urban legends and funny stories.

How many babies were born on the Moscow metro? Where is the secret Metro 2? How deep is the Moscow metro? And where did Stalin give his speech in November 1941? Join out Metro tour and find out!

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Cancellation Policy

• If you cancel between 0 hrs To 24 hrs before scheduled tour departure, the cancellation charge will be 100%
• If you cancel between 1 days To 180 days before scheduled tour departure, the cancellation charge will be 0%
• Please note that in case of No show, the cancellation charge will be 100% of the listed tour fare.
• Please note tours booked using discount coupon codes will be non refundable.
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