# How Madonna's Stylist Turned Pink, Purple and Vintage Corsets Into an Entire Summer > Rita Melssen explains the formula behind the Met Gala, Times Square, the World Cup halftime show and Amsterdam, built out of archives and deliberate collision. - Source: Star Life - Canonical URL: https://starlife.channel/article/madonna-fashion-stylist-interview-2026 - Author: Noor Adler - Section: Red Carpet - Published: 2026-08-15T11:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-08-15T11:00:00.000Z - Tags: Madonna, Rita Melssen, Styling, Vintage --- Madonna's summer opened in May at the Met Gala, in an inky black Saint Laurent gown that referenced Leonora Carrington's 1945 painting The Temptation of St. Anthony, finished with Isabella Blow's shipwreck hat by Philip Treacy. June brought Confessions II and then a surprise performance in Times Square in metallic leather and pink lingerie. July was the World Cup halftime show, corseted in sporting pinks and purples. Earlier this month she played the World Pride Music Festival in Amsterdam in purple, alongside Kylie Minogue. The thread running through all of it is archival clothing and an enormous quantity of pink and purple. At a moment when fashion has fixed on boudoir dressing and hard to find vintage, she is in the convenient position of having done every part of it first. ## The formula Rita Melssen, who styles her and builds the looks, describes the aesthetic as a pop goddess who fell out of a nightclub somewhere in space. The two of them arrived at a set of rules for this era: fixed colours, and a deliberate collision inside every outfit. Confessions II is softer than the first one, she says, leaning further into boudoir with lace slip dresses and teddies, but they kept the Frida Giannini leather jackets from the original run precisely so that nothing settles into one register. Her stated rule is that nothing gets to be too pretty, too rough, too racy or too disco. Two things from opposite ends, every time. ## What is coming out of the archive A great deal, drawn from Madonna's own wardrobe and from the archives of designers she has worked with, particularly where shoes are concerned. The Yves Saint Laurent lace up boots she performs in were a Tom Ford commission, built for her back in the first Confessions on a Dance Floor era, and Melssen points out how worn in they have become after years of dancing. The Confessions II short film uses vintage Dolce & Gabbana PVC minidresses and crystal studded corsets. The metallic purple Yves Saint Laurent pumps on the album cover were made to order and were already in her own collection. The corsets arrive from both directions: vintage pieces made for her by B. Akerlund and Arianne Phillips during the first Confessions era, alongside new antique inspired ones from Rosamosario and Period Corsets. Melssen says backing the people who collect archival clothing matters to her, on the grounds that the history is worth keeping hold of. ## Gloves and sunglasses Gloves have been part of the signature since the start, lace, driving, opera length, all of them at one point or another. The current version layers them, putting a sheer opera glove in a matching or clashing colour under a driving glove. Melssen says they now hold gloves in every colour going. Sunglasses do a similar job, vintage and coloured and carefully transparent, like the Dior by John Galliano pair worn to the Times Square performance. The rule there is firm. Sunglasses are part of the image, but the eyes have to stay visible, because that is where the connection with an audience happens. ## Why this era looks different Madonna's previous fashion phases ran to charcoal, red, deep blue, champagne and white. This one is pure pop, brighter, and pitched at a nostalgia that stops somewhere around 2005. Melssen's reading is that softening a hyper independent woman is itself the move, and that the object is to mix eras and hold past, present and future inside the same outfit. --- Originally published by Star Life. Free to cite with attribution and a link to https://starlife.channel/article/madonna-fashion-stylist-interview-2026.