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Annick-Isabel Marcoux, the head of downtown Toronto’s new Hard Candy Fitness centre – or, as it’s known to many, “that gym owned by Madonna” – looks as cinematically futuristic as the luxury fitness facility she runs.

Wearing a cocoon-like white jacket and a sci-fi platinum pixie cut, Ms. Marcoux fits right in with the gym’s shiny red chrome exercise equipment and furniture, which looks like it belongs on a starship.

It doesn’t resemble any fitness centre you have seen before, and there is a reason for this: Ms. Marcoux argues that Torontonians are eager to experiment with their workouts.

Click HERE for full article

The Express Yourself team is pleased to announce MADONNA 1958-2013 vol. 1 & 2, for more info visit

www.expressyourselflemag.com
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCe_0KVEV6i7zbocBAXrX0qw

Thanks to: Caroline

LOS ANGELES, CA – MARCH 06: Madonna is seen leaving the gym on March 06, 2014 in Los Angeles, California. (Pacific Coast News Photo)

When Jean Paul Gaultier visited Australia 20 years ago, it was not the Opera House, Great Ocean Road, Uluru or the Great Barrier Reef that caught his eye. Instead, he was mesmerised by Sydney’s Mardi Gras.
”You people make the best dykes on the bikes in the world,” laughed Gaultier in his studio in Paris. ”I was in Australia at the moment of the Mardi Gras and it was the most incredible and fabulous thing.”

The long-reigning enfant terrible of French fashion has created conical bras and corsets for Madonna, dressed men in skirts and showcased women and men of all sizes and ages on his catwalks.

His irreverent and challenging designs will be celebrated in Australia when the world’s first international exhibition devoted to Gaultier opens at the National Gallery of Victoria on October 17. Gaultier will attend the opening.

More than 140 garments spanning more than 40 years will be on display in The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk.

The bras and corsets Gaultier made for Madonna, designs created for Beyonce and Lady Gaga and collaborations with Andy Warhol are among pieces in the show, launched in Melbourne on Thursday.
An Australian muses section has been created for the Melbourne leg, highlighting Gaultier’s relationship with locals including Cate Blanchett and Nicole Kidman (his first couture client) and Kylie Minogue, for whom he has designed many stage costumes.

Read full article: https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/fashion/jean-paul-gaultier-exhibition-to-hit-national-gallery-of-victoria-catwalk-20140306-34a9o.html#ixzz2vCK1A32X

Available at Menuetto for only 34,99 euro’s, click HERE

Twenty-five years ago this March, after months of feverish anticipation, one of the most successful pop albums of the ‘80s hit stores with a whiff of patchouli and a heavy dose of controversy. Madonna’s commercial and artistic momentum had been building steadily since her first hit, “Holiday,” reached a modest #16 six years earlier. By the time 1989 had arrived and she was preparing to release her fourth album she’d amassed six #1 singles and was second only to Michael Jackson in the galaxy of pop stardom. With Like a Prayer she delivered a knockout that became a global smash, generated six hit singles, and sold millions of copies worldwide. Like a Prayer enjoyed critical acclaim as well as commercial success. Released on March 21, 1989, it spent six weeks at #1 on the Billboard Top 200 album chart during the spring of ’89. A quarter-century later, Like a Prayer still holds up as an outstanding collection of top-notch material. Overall, as a complete piece of work, it is arguably the finest album of Madonna’s three-decade-plus career.

The album was preceded by the release of the fantastic title-track on March 3. The single “Like a Prayer” did nothing to dampen expectations for the new album, and it quickly shot to #1 all over the world. The provocative video directed by Mary Lambert had religious conservatives in a tizzy and prompted Pepsi to drop Madonna from a major ad campaign (although all the pearl-clutching by those denouncing the video was surely more effective promotion than any advertising money could buy). The religious-themed clip — which features Madonna tenderly kissing a black saint that she had transformed from statue to flesh and blood with a sensual caress of her hand, and then dancing amongst flaming crosses in a skimpy black dress while wearing a crucifix — was condemned by no less than the Vatican itself. “Like a Prayer” is one of the great singles of the ‘80s and was brilliantly produced by Patrick Leonard. The sequence between 3:04 and 3:38 (on the album version) is particularly stunning. “Like a Prayer” includes a strong gospel element, and some commentators have noted a striking similarity between it and David Bowie’s 1986 single “Underground” from the movie Labyrinth (although even Bowie would have to admit that “Like a Prayer” is by far the stronger of the two). The title song and album opener set the stage for an assemblage of songs that are personal, strongly commercial, and brilliantly executed. Pop music doesn’t get much better than this.

Click HERE for the full article by Metro Weekly

Ayesha Vardag, one the UK’s top divorce lawyers

‘I’ve always found Madonna to be an inspiration. She used her sexuality and allure not to capture a rich man and live off him, but to drive her own talents and make herself a successful artist, ever reinventing herself to keep her personal brand alive. She’s a brilliant entrepreneur, and showed women that you don’t have to be masculine and asexual to get ahead in business. Madonna’s still an icon for smart, sexy mothers and business women. She blazed a trail and no one should forget how new and daring it all once was.’

From an article by Marie Claire https://www.marieclaire.co.uk/blogs/545759/the-women-who-have-inspired-us-the-most.html#HTlmgztsgU9FAx46.99

Madonna has done it again.

The Queen of Pop threw her annual celeb-filled post-Oscars bash last night at her manager Guy Oseary’s house.
And we’re not talking about just any celebs. Guests included Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Lupita Nyong’o, Julia Roberts, Miley Cyrus, Charlize Theron, Madonna’s ex Sean Penn and spouses-to-be Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher.

“Brad and Angie were talking to Julia and hanging out with Lupita, who was walking around with her Oscar telling everyone it was the best night ever,” a source tells me.

And then there was the dance floor.

“Miley was dancing with Madonna, and Julia was dancing with her friend,” the source said. (Although not confirmed, we imagine it was Roberts’ best friend from high school, who she brought as her date because hubby Danny Moder had to work.)
And continuing their PDA tour, “Sean and Charlize were making out on the dance floor,” the source said.
Kunis and Kutcher (his ex-wife, Demi Moore, used to cohost the soiree with Madonna) were also spotted at the Gucci-sponsored bash, as were Leonardo DiCaprio and his model girlfriend Toni Garrn. Jennifer Lawrence was palling around with some girlfriends.
Oscar host Ellen DeGeneres was there with wife Portia De Rossi, as was Bradley Cooper with his first-time Academy Awards attendee girlfriend Suki Waterhouse. Cooper’s American Hustle costars Jeremy Renner and Amy Adams also joined in on the fun.

Roberts did let her kids know she’d be home late. “They know I’m going to the Oscars,” she told me earlier in the day on the Oscars red carpet. “I don’t know if they know what that means per se, but they know I won’t be home for bedtime, so that’s the bummer.”

Fifty Shades of Grey movie producers Dana Brunetti and Mike De Luca also hosted a private house party.

The guest list included Brunetti’s girlfriend Kristin Chenoweth, Ryan Seacrest, John Stamos, Kellan Lutz, Tyson Beckford and Michael Strahan.

McDonald’s provided a late-night menu of breakfast treats, including Egg McMuffins.
—Additional reporting by Sara Kitnick

Read full article HERE

Dutch promo press pack

Today marks the date of the 25th anniversary of the release of the Like a Prayer single, a song and video that made history!

To check out all things Like a Prayer please check out our Like a Prayer promo tour

A new exhibition titled Paparazzi has just opened in the recent Pompidou Center in Metz, France (not the one in Paris).

Here are the pictures featuring Madonna

Thanks to: Laurent Keuvreux