Here is a leaked image of Madonna, starring in the Fall/Winter campaign for Dolce & Gabbana. According to CoverAwards, this image is an homage to Mamma Roma. Stefano Gabbana said, regarding the Madge-driven campaign that we‘ve already seen a glimpse of, “We wanted to continue pushing our current message that shows fashion’s more human nature and our heritage. This is yet another tassel of that mosaic. We believe the campaign is comforting and that people will somehow identify themselves in the images, which again display a more human and approachable side of Madonna.” Approachable? By airbrushing her into oblivion, and putting her with little old ladies and boys young enough to be her grandsons?
And thus, “approachable” is given an entirely new definition. Because in the paparazzi shots – the un-airbrushed, un-Photoshopped images, Madonna looked a million times more “real”. She looked like a 50-something year-old woman who was hanging out with a teenage boy. I’m sure that if we saw the original image of the header ad, Madonna would look “real” there too. The concept might have been to make Madge seem approachable, but the execution makes her seem like an hyper-image-conscious woman so terrified of aging that she demands excessive editorial work to give the consumers the illusion of youth.
Do you want to see what Madge really looks like? Here’s a photo of her at a Jay-Z concert over the weekend. This is real.
UPDATE: Here are more images from the D&G campaign:
Ads courtesy of WWD. Madonna at the Jay-Z concert on July 4, 2010. Credit: Bauer-Griffin.
eee yikes, check out those cheek cutlets, in the real madge photo.
they look like they want to jump out of her face…
damn.
*cher singing*
“oh, if i could turn back ti-me”
lol
Her neck tells the story of her age. Though my mom is in her 60’s and it’s not nearly as bad as that.
yikes
dear d&g copywriter:
a ‘tassel’ is a bit of fringe. a ‘tesselle’ is what mosaic is made out of. at least *pretend* to give a shit what you’re writing.
In reality she looks more like that woman sitting down in the top photo.
is madge playing both of the roles in the photo?
in an interview with the 17 years old model in the pic above he said that he was playing her son..also i saw another pic like a family reunion and it’s really good
too bad plastic surgery can’t do the same wonders that photo-shop can.
If that approached me, I’d have to whack it with a stick.
Good catch Bizzy.
@hellen: my dream job is to sit in my pj’s copy-editing the intarwebs all day.
Yikes! The cheeks, the jowels, the neck!
So sad…with all of her success and accolades that she cannot simply grow old gracefully.
also, as an ex-dressmaker, i have the urge to yell at madonna, “let go of the front of the jacket. stand straight. you want this sleeve the right length, or the right length only when you stand like that?”
Where did her jowls go, and how can I get mine to go to the same place?
@ Kaboom
LOL!!
Shame on her for aging. So she’s had a bit of work done…big deal. She still looks better than most 52 year olds and better than a lot of the twenty something and thirty year olds I see at the gym every day. I think she looks beautiful in the ads, airbrushed or otherwise.
i am disappointed with madge – i thought she would be one of those older women who likes her body, likes being older and is still fab. seems like she’s become very uncomfortable in her own skin.
She’s got it all. she’s got her career, family, kids, yeah she chooses her friends but hey….fiends are with you for a reason, a season or a lifetime. she still looks after herself, it’s not like the photoshoppers need to do that much apart from erase a few wrinkles and other things that are expected once one hits 50. She’s getting older, get over it people.
Wow! I never realized how much she looks like Hilary Clinton.
Why those cheek implants? Why? Cheek implants give the worst result in plastic surgery, so fake.
I’ve never understoof the glee that people take in trashing women for getting older. It’s coming for everyone, you know.
Then again, I suppose it’s a testament to her power and our belief in her as a business person and a strong person that we hold HER responsible for the editorial decisions made by the marketing department of a major clothing conglomerate. As if hired spokesmodels are invited into the editing room. Get a grip.
stefano sounds like an idiot here.
and who the hell wants an approachable madonna?
I don’t think it’s terrible that she’s getting older. I think it would be more powerful if women embraced it, however. Wouldn’t it be awesome if she did a photoshoot in all her glory, wrinkles and all? She’d still look and be beautiful. The photo-shopping is trying WAY too hard to convince us that suddenly, we’re back in 1989. And who’s buying that?
It’s so sad that she’s had work done. Of all the women in the world-o-fame who I thought had the cojones, the power, the sheer will to grow old without resorting to surgery, Madonna was one of them; Tori Amos was the other.
Both self-described alpha-females, both in total ownership of their careers and their sexuality, both moneyed enough and powerful enough to turn to the world and say, “You know what, fuck you. If you are so dumb as to be afraid of the visible signs of aging, that is entirely your problem. I OWN my sagging jowls and my wrinkles, and I can be sexy with them, and I don’t need your affirmation either way.”
I mean, how many women who opt for age-related surgery actually look better? And how much would people respect a woman in the public eye who dared to age without buggering about with their face? Every time I see Marg Helgenberger (for example) I just think she’s ridiculous. I used to love her; now I think, Agh, Marg, you dumbass, you look like your own death mask. You can’t move your face anymore, so you have to act entirely by tossing your hair. Good move.
I know that the pressures on women – especially famous women – are intense. I sympathise totally. But any woman who is brave, who resists the urge, and sticks out from the crowd of ill-advised plastics would surely gain in respect and admiration and basic DIGNITY whatever she imagines she’s losing in sex appeal.
I mean, is Madonna better off for her surgery? Whatever public image she hoped to maintain, I think she failed – people are openly pointing and laughing at her! Would she be so much worse off if she looked her age, sans surgery? At least then people would be saying, “Wow, Madonna looks her age now… but at least she hasn’t opted for some crappy surgery. Well done Madge.”
Madonna could have done it. But….no.
I don’t understand how anyone can say Madonna looks good anymore. It’s not that she’s aging, for me. It’s that she just looks fucking bad. I think if she had aged a little more *ahem* naturally instead of waging war against father time, she’d probably look 5 times better. Her cheek implants look like shit, she looks like shit. It has nothing to do with age, and all to do with desperation and trying way too many things to keep young because it’s backfiring hard. MAN she looks bad. Just let it go, Madge. I guarantee you would look more beautiful and graceful if you just stopped trying. She’s kind of like Paris Hilton in that way. Whenever Paris is in a tshirt and simple jeans with her real hair down and a pair of sunglasses to cover that lazy eye, she looks way better than when she actually tries to look sexy. Same thing applies here. Whenever Madonna tries really hard to look youthful, she ends up aging herself.
Also – what Lenore said. Very well put.
Who does D&G think they are kidding since many sites like this one carry the real Madge pics and no one is fooled by photoshopping. BTW, why can’t advertisers hire real working models to do this – they’d be cheaper and require less and God forbid, perhaps no photoshopping. Madge should use her millions to fund music schools to create real musicians and singers not craptastic pinheads like Katy Perry and Lady CaCa’s.
Remember when Madonna looked Italian? Look at True Blue and La Isla Bonita to see what I mean. I thought she was SO pretty in those days.
Now, she looks like a snobby Westerner/”plastic surgery victim” on holiday–seeing how those quaint Italians live their lives. It’s kinda sad. She erased her ethnicity with the surgery.
@Lenore – ITA. I don’t understand how all these women with the jacked up faces think they look better now than if they had a few wrinkles. Aging is inevitable – why try to fight it?
Madonna needs an Neck-i-otomy
EXACTLY what Lenore said. Thanks for that!
Looks to me like they pasted Mad’s features onto Anna Nicole Smith’s head.
Dittos on what Lenore and some of the of the others said. She looks old partly for one very important reason: almost no body fat. You need a little to smooth out those turkey necks, and to help cover those cheek implants. And I am not even gonna go into those hands and arms. You want to see SJParker’s future? Here ya go.
Not just cheek implants–she keeps elongating her chin if you notice.
All in all, Madge still looks good for 52, air brushed or not. At least her body is still hot. I hope to look that way at her age.
The group shot shows the older woman with the babushka on her head with her REAL hands and that is what Madonna’s hands normally look like! Foget
SJP Horsey they both have very veiny hands/arms! You can see how photoshopped it is, it looks like it doesn’t belong in those shots!! Like Leonore n others said perhaps a tiny bit of surgery but nothing is more admirable and beautiful than growing GRACEFULLY OLDER!!
I love how in the “family photo”, there are no adult sisters and none of the men have wives or girlfriends. Just one “elderly” grandmother. Such a coincidence, “non”? 🙂
The funny thing? She is probably the same age as the woman in the first photograph.
What campaign can we all look forward to when she is 70?
Anyway, as for her having work done. Madonna never had the facial features that would enable her to age well anyway. Even now, with the work she has had done, she looks icky without Photoshop, unlike many other women her age who haven’t had work done. Let’s face it, she was never pretty to begin with.
The look on that baby is priceless, he/she is thinking,”this lady has more plastic than my chewable toy”
After all the photos with young men led to everyone saying she looked like their grandma, they put her with a much older woman to make her look younger!
I don’t think anyone’s ripping on her for aging (that would be silly since we ALL age), it’s more about her unwillingness to embrace her age and her natural self, and the D&G campaign for trying to airbrush 25 years off of her.
Madonna was a pretty, confident woman who built an empire (on not a huge singing talent) and has now turned herself into a joke who seems desperate to cling to her youth instead of being proud of who she is and what she’s accomplished.
@Lenore, very well said.
Her pal, Gwyneth Paltrow, looks like she is aging naturally to me, does anyone else agree?
First of all – she looks good in public quite often but for instance THIS picture at the concert – when lighting is bad ANYone can look terrible. Case and point – dressing room stalls… ever go in one of those? The lighting is often unflattering no matter what your age is.
Second. There IS a thing called AGESISM. For all you YOUNG folks out there – you just don’t get this yet – but to stay relevant in the POP culture she needs to do maintenence – just like every other star out there to be taken seriously. It just is fact. And that is true for just about ANY job in society now.
Third – Plastic surgery is no different than Spanx, coloring your hair or wearing makeup, veneers or contact lenses. To maintian looks just about everyone uses synthetic help in some shape or form.
Finally, I am only a few years younger than Madonna and I will proudly go and get artificial enhancements when the time is right. I’ve already started using Botox and fillers… And I love them. It’s very easy for you younger people to sit back and judge others as they age, but when you GET there – you are not quite able or ready to give up looking rested and spruced – expecially when you feel younger inside. If she was not doing something – she would be critisized for that too.
Also, It is very difficult to be a beautiful woman (famous or not) and watch that fade away over time. My mother is 73 and has had 2 facelifts and looks VERY good for her age. She also still works in the medical feild and she’s had plastic surgery because she said people would look at her and think she was mad at them (old face scowl lines) or they would question if she was “up to date on procedures” because she LOOKED older and often people would not trust someone who does not look fresh enough to be current in the latest technological trends… She did this mainly for professional reasons, to look progressive and she looks remarkable. She went to her High school reunion and most of her colleagues looked like grannies – overweight, grey, wrinkled prunes… and they were amazed and some went out afterwards and got some work done as well. She looks like a Soap Opera star. Dresses beautifully, is vivacious and her looks matches the way she feels.
She is 73 but she looks 60 and the work done is in accordance to her age and appropriate looking. I will follow in her footsteps.
I can’t wait for when stem cells can prolong cell regeneration and surgery will not be required to maintain some day.
The only thing I reject that Madonna does do is at times she dresses too young and does not dress more like at her maturity level – sometimes too trendy looking and it comes across at her age as silly looking. Like doing hip hop in shorts during her concert with Lolita glasses and long stringy hair – and trying to do that street-cred “home-girl” persona… I think THAT is what ages her and I would like to see her grow older gracefully by dressing more classy and in classic clothing. I also think she should gain 10 pounds.
So there is a perspective from an OLDER person who basically wants to tell all of you judgemental young ‘uns – just wait. Your time is coming and you will be surprised that you won’t want to take it as naturally as you think. Especially if you are a Western woman…
Madonna pretends to be 30 years younger than she really is and she thinks we have all bought into it. The plastic surgery also makes her look weird and distorted.
She is a 52 year old lady, she should be proud of that.
Excellent submit. I was checking constantly this blog and I am impressed! İncredibly useful data particularly the last portion I care for these kinds of information substantially. I was interested in this particular info to get a extended time. Thank you and fantastic luck.