The Like A Virgin Aura
Last night we premiered our exclusive interview with Maripol. Here’s an interesting excerpt from it in which we discuss with her about the creation of the “Virgin Look“.
MadonnaTribe: Let’s talk about Madonna’s Virgin look – how was it created?
Maripol: She came to me and I just styled a bunch of things on her. I was already making the rubber jewelery and I was already making the crosses because of my love for the punks. So it was perfect for her. And talking about the clothes, Erika Bell used to make a lot of her clothes, I would give her clothes from Fiorucci and it was a mix of everything. And for “Like A Virgin” I was really hired as her stylist, to be with Steven Meisel and work on the look of the album cover.
MadonnaTribe: What memories do you have of that Like A Virgin cover shoot with Steven Meisel? I think it was done at the Saint Regis Hotel.
Maripol: Yes it was uptown, at the Saint Regis. And I remember everything. I remember the blue satin sheet she used to cover herself with [the photo later used on the european cover of the Material Girl single]. We did a bathroom shoot and there are a lot of photos that we never used.
MadonnaTribe: Was there any funny thing that happened during that photoshoot?
Maripol: Yes, at the beginning there was an art director, she wanted everything to be Madonna in black, a heavy rock “Black Sabbath Madonna”. And I didn’t think that it fitted very well. I said why don’t we bring out the aura of the “Like A Virgin” song, we can play with that. And it was rebellious since who was going to believe she was still a virgin!! She agreed and we got along very well.
MadonnaTribe: Did you design the “wedding dress” for the “Like A Virgin” video?
Maripol: No, the veil was designed by my friend Katsuko and the dress was one we bought. I was in Japan doing a collection for Fiorucci and I missed the whole shoot but she stayed “street Madonna” and used some of my jewellery in the parts of the video on the bridges of Venice.
MadonnaTribe: And then came the MTV Awards performance…
Maripol: The idea of that performance came from an kind of a vision I had. We used the exact dress she is wearing on the album cover. We were right there. It was incredible because nobody expected it to be so raunchy. Cindy Lauper was there and was going to be star of the night and then Madonna came out. During the performance the camera shooting live, went right under her skirt and I remember Freddy De Mann saying: “Never again will I let her being shot live”.
But that “did it”. I remember all the photographers running to the press conference right after she went off!!!
MadonnaTribe: Did you have the chance to see how that performance was re-created on MTV with Britney and Christina twenty years later?
Maripol: Yes, she also had Lourdes on stage with her wearing the same look.
MadonnaTribe: How did you came up with idea of using rosaries and crosses as jewellery. I understand you did that before “giving” it to Madonna.
Maripol: Yes, well for Madonna it was meant to be something very spiritual. I was also raised catholic and Madonna and I both rebelled to that. My mother didn’t like it. It was a way to say “why if I wear it on the ear it makes me a lesser good catholic girl??”.
Click on image below to read our full exclusive interview with Maripol
