Editor’s Note: Delving into the archives of popular culture historical past, “Remember When?” is a NCS Style sequence providing a nostalgic take a look at the superstar outfits that outlined their eras.
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Every from time to time, a chunk of popular culture will seize the proper storm of expertise, story and magnificence to face up to the check of time. One such instance is the 1985 comedy-drama “Desperately Seeking Susan,” starring Rosanna Arquette as bored housewife Roberta and Madonna because the titular Susan, an enigmatic downtown punk who captures Roberta’s consideration via private ads in a newspaper.
When Madonna was forged, forward of filming in the summertime and early fall of 1984, she was a fledgling pop star with solely modest hits equivalent to “Borderline,” “Holiday” and “Lucky Star” to her identify. Studio executives needed to be satisfied of her function within the film, director Susan Seidelman recalled, on a Zoom name with NCS.
But, throughout filming, a uncommon phenomenon occurred: Madonna grew to become a famous person after the discharge of her second album, “Like a Virgin”, and abruptly, “Desperately Seeking Susan” grew to become largely seen as “the Madonna movie”. Studio executives then rushed to launch the film to capitalize on the singer’s success, which they thought can be a flash-in-the-pan (little did they know that Madonna would go on to create 18 multi-platinum albums and wield cultural affect 40 years later).
Madonna grew to become an influential determine in popular culture, partially via her model, which included headscarves, heavy costume jewellery and sporting underwear-as-outerwear — all of which grew to become synonymous together with her character in “Desperately Seeking Susan”. Despite the movie’s fortieth anniversary this yr, it nonetheless feels fashionable. And whereas ’80s trend can simply veer into costume-like territory, the simplicity and easy cool of Susan’s outfits wouldn’t look misplaced right now.
The movie’s costume and manufacturing designer Santo Loquasto pulled clothes and inspiration from throughout a number of many years, together with his personal mom’s wardrobe for Susan’s black bustier, which was really two items: a corset and a longline bra. “(Madonna) put it on and looked at her bust and said, ‘your mother is some lady’, in her best Mae West delivery!” laughed Loquasto as he spoke to NCS by way of Zoom. One can’t assist however marvel if the seeds of the iconic Jean Paul Gaultier cone bra, which Madonna would go on to put on within the music video for her tune “Vogue” and on her “Blonde Ambition” tour within the ‘90s, had been planted right here.
Loquasto defined that his strategy to creating the appears for Susan within the movie was guided by Madonna’s personal strategy to trend, which made for an “organic” and “harmonious” amalgam that he merely “embellished” along with his personal touches.
“I’m going to exploit your sensibility totally because we’re all fascinated by it and you’re comfortable with it,” Loquasto recalled telling her.
“I would shake a baggie of jewelry onto (Madonna’s) couch in the trailer and say, ‘I’ll be back in an hour, have a ball.’ And she would go at it,” he continued — layering chunky beads, crucifixes and rubber bangles that she would later turn out to be recognized for.
However, there was one merchandise of clothes that wasn’t gleaned from Madonna’s preferences however was included within the script written by Leora Barish — a Fifties olive inexperienced tuxedo jacket with a golden pyramid embroidered on the again, which was so usually worn by Susan that it grew to become not solely one in every of her character’s key identifiers but additionally a serious plot level. (Though, Madonna herself wasn’t a fan of the jacket, in line with Seidelman.)
In the movie, when the jacket is traded by Susan for a pair of rhinestone boots at a second-hand clothes retailer, it’s bought by Roberta, who in her fascination with Susan has been following her after answering one in every of her private adverts. But after an accident during which Roberta hits her head, she’s mistaken by an acquaintance for Susan due to the jacket, and Roberta reluctantly assumes her identification as an escape from her suburban existence.
On Roberta’s return dwelling, her buy is met with derision by her ineffectual husband Gary: “You bought a used jacket? What are we, poor?” he mocks. It’s a jeer that now feels laughably uninformed as classic and secondhand procuring enjoys a surge, significantly amongst youthful customers, who view it as an environmentally acutely aware various to purchasing new, whereas additionally being drawn to distinctive items that permit them to precise their individuality.
While Susan’s model will get all the eye, there’s a narrative to be informed in Roberta’s awkward glow-up, too. When viewers first meet Roberta, she’s sporting a shapeless pink muu-muu with a Peter Pan collar that one would think about being worn by a toddler or grandmother. Upon securing the pyramid jacket — the one cool merchandise of clothes Roberta has ever come into contact with, it could appear — she clashes it with garish pinks and purples regardless of her determined try and mirror what Susan would put on.
Roberta’s sensibilities might have inadvertently left a mark on Madonna, in line with Seidelman, observing that a few of Roberta’s girlishness in later scenes appeared to have rubbed off on the singer. For instance, the white lace thigh-high stockings and matching garter belt worn by Susan bear an uncanny resemblance to the costumes worn by Madonna within the video for “Like a Virgin,” which was shot across the identical time.
“In a way the pyramid jacket is used as a symbol of transformation,” defined Seidelman. “The idea wasn’t that Roberta was becoming Madonna’s (character); it was that she was becoming a more empowered version of herself. She’s not there yet, but she’s on the way.”
Ultimately, that was the movie’s message: reinvention. The identical might be mentioned of Madonna, whose private model evolution over her boundary-pushing profession has influenced many pop stars that followed. Yet, regardless of Madonna’s many legendary wardrobe moments, her model within the ‘80s remains one of her most iconic and instantly identifiable looks — and perhaps that’s in no small half because of “Desperately Seeking Susan.”