Pop Queen Madonna returns with her thirteenth studio album, Rebel Heart and it’s house single “Living For Love.” Directed by French duo Julien Choquart and Camille Hirigoyen, together known as J.A.C.K., they created a battle of Minotaur vs man with precise styling and wardrobe by B. Akerland and corset designer Verena Dietzel.
Styled by B. Akerlund and choreographed by Megan Lawson. Verena Dietzel, creator of the fashion label V-Couture, who specializes in different kinds of corsets, were enlisted to create clothing for the video, as well as a Grammy Awards performance. Dietzel explained that she had initially thought Madonna’s e-mail as spam, however after confirmation from the singer’s assistant stylist, B. Åkerlund, she started working on the designs. Within 48 hours she sewed a new corset, as well as created two new ones, by basing them on the only information provided to her, that of Madonna’s bra-size. She had to search on Google for deducing the rest of the singer’s proportions. In total four different corsets were shipped off to Madonna.
Lebanese designer Shady Zeineldine was also contacted by Åkerlund, who visited the designer’s press conference in Los Angeles, and asked him to send his ideas and sketches for the video. After the deal was finalized, he created a custom made matador jacket which Madonna wore in the video. Another dress was a bodysuit, featuring a nude satin-stretch corset covered in three different types of lace, a black chiffon silk top and a satin tie. There was also a red velvet bolero jacket. The corset was described by Steff Yotka from Style.com as “masculine-feminine mix… it’s the sort of tight, sexy, gender-bending thing we’ve come to expect from [Madonna]”. The singer and her team had sent matador references to Zeineldine, who wanted to give a feminine touch to the designs, utilizing numerous laces and nude color palette to highlight the singer’s body curves. Amber Kallor from Style.com explained that Madonna’s make-up in the video was inspired by recent runway shows of Christian Dior and Givenchy. The singer had applied parallel eye liner with her bolero jacket look, as well as sported bobby pin and Princess Leia like buns on her hair. Designer Riccardo Tisci created the crystal masks and horns for Madonna’s dancers as Minotaurs; he also applied gems on the singer’s face for one sequence in the video.
The video is what we expect from the boundary pushing and beyond hard working Madonna so without further adieu, Living For Love…
