How to handle separation
Going through a divorce or a break up? We've asked some experts to give us their tips to help you through this time.
Disposing of CFLs
Find out why you should dispose of your CFLs at participating outlets instead of throwing them in the bin.
News & Trends |
Galleries |
Fashion Weeks |
Celeb Style |
The Look Book |
Fabulous Finds |
Hair |
Make-up |
Skin |
Weddings |
Products |
Experts |
Falling Pregnant |
Being Pregnant |
Birth |
0-12 Months |
1-3 Years |
School |
Health & Nutrition |
Talking Point |
Happy Snaps |
Experts |
News & Trends |
Décor |
DIY |
Handcraft |
Gardening |
Food |
Restaurants |
Motoring |
Travel |
Experts |
your voice, every day
Health24 and Women24 show you how... brought to you by Natrodale.
Tools |
Madonna in transition
28 August 1987: Madonna performs during a single concert held in the park of the town of Sceaux, located in the southern suburb of Paris.
The look: "I won't be happy till I'm as famous as God."
Madonna rocketed to stardom quickly and her controversial persona often obscured her musical virtues. Madonna in the 80's was considered a fashion icon and teenage girls were heavily influenced by her live performances and music videos.
Madonna was often seen wearing lace tops, skirts over capri pants, fishnet stockings, jewellery bearing the Christian cross and bleached hair. Her distinctive style became a mainstream trend which was emulated by other female recording artists at the time, like Cindy Lauper and Kyle Minogue.
Image: AFP photo/Bertrand Guay
Madonna in transition
13 April 1990: Madonna performs on top of a bed on stage during the kick off of her Blonde Ambition world tour in the Chiba Marine Stadium at Makuhari, Japan.
The look: The iconic Madonna look which made history. Liz Hurley had her Versace pin dress, JLO had her jungle green revealing Versace creation, Bjork did the swan thing but it was Madonna, who did it first, in her underwear.
For her Blonde Ambition tour, her costumes were designed by famed French fashion extraordinaire, Jean Paul Gaultier. The various looks included a controversial conical shaped brassiere which only helped to launch her reputation as a statement maker.
No other artist had the boldness to mix provocative sexual moves, religious symbols and mega hits Like a Virgin, Like a Prayer, Express Yourself, Vogue and Material Girl together.
Image: AFP photo/Mark Robinson
Madonna in transition
13 May 1991: Madonna displays the outfit, designed by French Jean-Paul Gaultier, she is wearing under an ample coat as she leaves the Cannes Festival Palace after the screening of her movie In Bed with Madonna.
The look: Following the success of her cone shaped egg cups, Miss Madonna sparked fashion trend history by wearing her undergarments in public – even if they looked liked suck-in-tummy magic knicker styled cycling shorts.
Her eyebrows are thick and dark similar to her hair but who would notice. At the screening of In bed with Madonna, a little lingerie number would have been far sexier but that's not what it's about, she's making a statement.
Image: AFP photo
Madonna in transition
28 September 1993: Madonna performs during her Girlie Show in Bercy Omnisport Palace in Paris.
The look: Holy Afro! The Isle of Bonita meets a neon coloured explosion for an amateur stage production. To be fair, the central visual theme was Burlesque Circus and baby... the clown came to town in this get-up.
Image: AFP photo/Bertrand Guay
Madonna in transition
18 December 1996: Madonna arrives at a London hotel for television interviews before her British premier of her movie Evita, based on the story of British author and songwriter Andrew Lloyd Webber.
The look: Madonna tried her hand at acting which offered little critical acclaim. When she heard about the opportunity to play the title role in the film adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Evita, she began one of her most subtle image makeovers as she lobbied for the role.
At the start of her career, her hair was always dramatically styled. Here, her hair, in her attempt to look the part for Evita, is naturally styled and she has clothes on.
Image: AFP photo/David Thomson
Madonna in transition
23 December 1996: Enjoying the spotlight, singer-actress Madonna pauses for photographers upon her arrival at the Music Palace Cinema in Madrid before the Spanish premiere of her latest film Evita.
The look: Madonna's body has also undergone its own transformations, from sculptured to curvy to super-sculptured again. For the role of Evita, she embraced all her womanliness.
In this image, I don't know if I should look at the decorative flower doily on her head or the two projected lady lumps fighting for the spotlight. It's a bit frothy for Madonna, who's usually quite neatly arranged in character.
Image: AFP photo/Ballesteros
Madonna in transition
27 September 1998: Madonna addresses some of the 28 000 people about to walk 10km around Hollywood for the charity "AIDS Project Los Angeles".
The look: In the past, it was the activist thing to appear in public with greasy hair, overgrown eyebrows and thrown together "I don't give damn" outfits. Madonna certainly looks the part but the hair scores a zero in the style stakes.
You can make a statement and wash your hair too... after all, aren't you the material girl?
Image: AFP phot/Lucy Nicholson
Madonna in transition
24 February 1999: Singer Madonna receives the Grammy for the Best Pop Album of the Year at the 41st Grammy Awards at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.
The look: "I am my own experiment. I am my own work of art." She collects ideas whether its paintings, films or literature – her geisha phase was met with wild success and the look was forever set in music history. It would be difficult for any other pop singer to emulate or inspire anything similar to this well thought out, planned image. Image: AFP photo/Hector Mata
Madonna in transition
5 December 1999: Madonna announces British actor Rupert Everett as the winner of the Celebrity Style-Male award at the 1999 VH1-Vogue Fashion Awards in New York.
The look: Her hair is worn long and motherly – the most natural shade for Madonna, we mean, Madge. Yes, her name went through its own transformation, without her consent.
Elegant in her ensemble, it's not the outfit that is shocking but how quickly she can move from one look into another, with a real sense of believability.
Image: AFP photo/Timothy Clary
Madonna in transition
21 February 2001: Madonna performs at the 43rd Annual Grammy Awards at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Madonna was nominated in Record of the Year for "Music."
The look: Madonna's hair, worn short and choppy, is the lightest shade we've seen on her – she must have liked the look, as she had a similar wig made for her music video Jump which was released in 2006.
Throughout the America Life album, she flirted with political ideals which were projected onto a very Che Geuvara-esque album cover.
Her look was less character and more focused on the messages of her lyrics. Interestingly, it was one of her favourite albums but one of her lesser selling successes.
My guess is that no-one really wants to hear Madonna do an Eminem style-rap about having a doctor, a nanny, two assistants and a chef.
Image: AFP photo/Hector Mata
Madonna in transition
21 July 2001: Madonna performs in the first of two sold-out shows at the First Union Center in Philadelphia at the start of the North American leg of her Drowned World Tour.
The look: This tour should have been called Drowned Look and not Drowned World – have these clothes been in the wash & dry cycle one too many times?
Madonna looks like an underground runaway rebel, fighting gasses, aliens or whatever, in a Tom Cruise/Steven Spielberg extravaganza over-the-top styled end-of-the-world disaster story.
Let's hope Madge doesn't get too serious, we have enough to think about without our fave singer turning political – what happened to the vogue striking poses and conical shaped bras?
Image: AFP photo/Tom Mihalek
Madonna in transition
15 September 2003: Madonna at her Paris publisher Gallimard for the worldwide launching of her book The English Roses which went on sale in 100 countries and more than 30 languages. The singer, who was 45 at the time, said she conceived The English Roses as the first of five children's books inspired by the Kabbalah, the system of Jewish mystical thought which she has been studying for seven years.
The look: Madonna becomes the maternal girl. Naturally presented, Madonna launches her children's literature series looking like the title, English Rose.
Image: AFP photo/Joel Saget
Madonna in transition
26 May 2004 : Madonna performs onstage during her Re-Invention World Tour 2004 at The Great Western Forum, in Inglewood, California.
The look: The outfit Madonna is wearing was designed by Christian LaCroix. Swinging in tartan with a t-shirt saying "Kabbalists do it better", Madonna launches her latest tour, Re-Invention.
The tour featured iconic looks from Madonna's past albums – this seemed fitting as when you imagine Madonna, you don't envision a single moment but a series of images of one person morphing into another.
Image: AFP photo/Robert Vos
Madonna in transition
3 November 2005: Madonna poses backstage at the MTV European Music Awards at the Atlantico Pavillion in Lisbon
The look: "My daughter is critical. Sometimes she totally disapproves of what I wear. She doesn't want me to look too strange. If I pick her up from school she instructs me to dress normally. She goes, 'Why can't you just be like normal mothers?'"
Two years from turning fifty, Madonna has thighs of a 15 year old cheerleader.
Not too sure if many soccer moms could do the school run in their Phil Joffey inspired Body Beat ensemble, but Madge makes it work.
Image: AFP photo/Nicolas Asfouri
Madonna in transition
8 February 2006: Madonna performs with Gorillaz during the 48th Annual Grammy Awards at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
The look: It may be a stage costume, but Madge revives the 80's aerobic dance scene which once made Jane Fonda famous. Included in the look is the Farah Fawcett hair flick but the problem with this image is that not many women... in fact, perhaps only teenagers, could do purple lycra justice.
I, for one, would need some serious undergarments (like a huge band aid) to stop my wobbly bits from falling out... and working the pole at the same time, it's just too much effort.
It's as kitsch as those dancing with stars outfits.
Image: AFP photo
Madonna in transition
12 September 2006: Madonna performs her controversial show Confessions in Moscow.
The look: "I am a survivor. I am like a cockroach; you just can't get rid of me."
The dominatrix from the english manor – she certainly has an imagination.
Image: AFP photo/Alexander Nemenov
Madonna in transition
25 January 2007: Madonna poses as she arrives at the British Premiere of animated film Arthur and the Invisibles in London. Madonna's provided the voiceover for one of the film's characters.
The look: Madonna was once asked if she could write a letter to her 19-year-old self, the one who lived penniless in New York almost 30 years ago with a big dream, what she would say to her?
Her answer: "You're not going to believe what's going to happen to you... But remember these things: Never take any of it personally. If you really want to be a revolutionary, you have to be prepared to be unpopular. Don't do it if you don't really mean it, and none of it is real."
In the words of Robbie Williams... "She's Madonna."
Image: AFP photo/Carl de Souza
Madonna in transition
19 April 2007: Madonna poses with her Malawian son David Banda in Mphandula.
The look: "There is a part of me that is secretly enjoying pissing people off, because I know that when you're pissing people off you're often doing the right thing. I could have joined the U.N. and visited various countries and smiled and looked concerned. But that's not getting to the root of the problem – and whether I have earned the right to do it, or the respect of people who think I may not have the right to do it, is completely and utterly irrelevant."
She made it through the wilderness and into Malawi and whether or not you believe the world's onetime sex kitten – make that, lioness – has transformed herself into Mother Teresa, it doesn't matter to her at all. Call it what you will but it's impossible to know for sure. It's in this quality that allows Madonna to be Madonna and defines her as one of the biggest stars who will continue to spark controversy.
She could have retired to the English countryside and released greatest hits albums at Christmas time but she's not a shrinking violet – she's a revolutionary, a star and until such time as she doesn't want to anymore, we can expect to see a lot more from this formidable woman... we just hope the purple leotard has been packed away, far away.
Image: AFP photo
Take a look at more galleries...
Have something to say?
 |
 |
|
|
|
||
 |
 |
|
| Madonna is or was raised in a catholic home and breastfeeding is a big no-no in that arena-and black kids traditions and customs dictate that they must be breastfed and does this mean that boy is going to be denied this right which bonds the child to the mother. Madonna`s kids are left in the care of minders most of the time how is she going to give this boy any tender-loving care and attention if she is always on the road, hotels and clubs? | ||
 |
||
| Tim on 18 Jun at 10:37 |
||
| So Tim, what do you have to say about Angelina Jolie then, since she has a TROOP of her own? Be logical before you speak, who the hell is she going to breastfeed the boy? She has no milk. Please keep uneducated comments to yourself. She is giving that boy a much better life than what he is used to, whether it be filled with more time with Nannies, at least he has someone to call Mommy and Daddy. | ||
 |
||
| Claudia on 19 Jun at 15:40 |
||
| Tim, where oh where did you hear that Catholics regard breastfeeding as a "big no-no"????? | ||
|
||
| CB on 20 Jun at 08:08 |
||
| You are right Claudia. People must learn to appreciate the good job other people are doing. Viva Madonna Viva. If I had money I would do the same as you and Brangelina. God will richly bless you for adopting those poor kids. Tim Just shut up and leave Madonna and Brangelina alone. If you are anti-adoption then shut your big mouth. | ||
|
||
| Phumi on 20 Jun at 09:06 |
||
| I aint no shutting up and am defending my traditions and customs which Europeans and Westerners have destroyed and are still destroying by now Westernisng our kids.That`s precisely what that pervetted Catholic MADONNA WILL DO TO THAT BOY. By the way what I`m doing here whites will also do it if a black pervet can adopt a white kid.That boy must have someone from his roots to bring him-up under his customs around the clock to protect his traditional identity.He must be accorded the right to conduct his traditional ceremonies and rituals.That is the first and foremost demand and the good life nonsense is of secondary importance which is borne by the greed of his parents.I challenge the Human Rights lobby to see to it that that boy is not distracted from his traditions,finish and klaar! | ||
|
||
| Tim on 20 Jun at 09:49 |
||
| Where do you come with your chauvinistic ideas about tradition? I won't even start on your racism and intolerance for other religions. The reality is that boy will have the chance at a better life now and because of her money so will many others. You don't strike me as the kind of man who would even change a nappy so please don't try lecture us women about motherhood! And you probably refuse to wear a condom too ne? Face it Timothy - men like you are obselete so SUGA! | ||
|
||
| May on 20 Jun at 23:06 |
||
| One thing i have notice is that people will critisized anybody who is more famous than them...in this case Madonna is the one of those peopl who dont care about critisism, and neither do i, because she dont care... She is mostly concern in what she believes in and in whatever comes her way she takes it with her head held up....even tho people despise her for the way she dress, her music or even her choices, then we have to take a better look at ourselves and ask.."Dont we sometimes do that as well, there is a time when all of us do stuff we feel comfortable with and then we realize, do we care?. So next time we feel that we are better than them, take a very good look at yourself first. | ||
|
||
| Miguel on 01 Aug at 15:12 |
||
| madonna is an marvelous woman.and d word 'change' doesnt affect her.also she has a good heart for adopting a black boy.she is da bomb. | ||
|
||
| janet on 07 Aug at 23:40 |
||
| Timothy, millions of African children have lost their mothers, just who do you think is *breastfeeding* them? Millions of African mothers are so starving that they don't have any milk in their breasts for their kids. Wake up Mister! Read some books about the Rumanian orphanage children who've been adopted by UK parents and whose lives have been, literally, transformed by their adoption! | ||
|
||
| Sylph on 19 Sep at 16:23 |
||
|
|
||
 |
 |
|
IN Skin
Detoxing isn't just about eliminating impurities from your digestive system: your skin can benefit just as much from being rid of harmful toxins.
IN News & Trends
Whichever styles you choose to wear this summer, don't forget to complete your look with a stylish manicure or pedicure.
IN Galleries
Don't know the difference between a bikini and a monokini? We show you the hottest swimsuit styles on the market...
IN News & Trends
Hundreds of Japanese girls are donning Victorian dresses, eyes rimmed heavily with black make-up...
|
||
 |
 |
|
your voice, every day... |
|
Absence makes one lose track
Snowy is back after an extended absence from blogland and gives us an update on what's been happening in her life lately...
Catch up with her here Venting and taxi drivers
|
|
You're all invited!
|
|
|
|
|
Ask an expert...
|
||
|
|
||
 |
 |
|
