Australian fashion fans of pop queen Madonna now have the chance to get up close and personal with some of the 51-year-old diva’s personal effects. A brand new display, Madonna: The Exhibition, has gone on show at Melbourne’s Chadstone Shopping centre, and features everything from the “Like A Virgin” singer’s own credit card to the pink satin gown worn in the film-clip to “Material Girl”.
The costumes and goods on show are the combined belongings of a London group of financiers called the Marquee Capital, who (together with a dedicated group of Madonna fans) have slowly been collecting the singer’s effects for several years. Also on display at the fashion capital is the full set of costumes from Madonna’s 1997 film Evita; the bowler hat from her Blonde Ambition tour; and the black satin bustier from the “Open Your Heart” video. According to Waheed Waslam (from Marquee Capital) the investments have proved valuable, increasing 33 percent in two years alone.
“It started out as one of the guys just collecting some items, as you normally do. And then he got together with myself and a few others and we thought we could make a bit more of this,” he told the Herald Sun. “The drive behind it is the hedge fund industry itself. Investors are looking at non-traditional items that could give them a new return. Madonna is the core part of the portfolio, and we are all fans anyway. She has just about explored every aspect of music, pop, entertainment, fashion, cinema, social issues, women’s issues ... She went through a period in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s when she was very edgy and non-mainstream.”
With more than 20 costumes on display, the expired credit card came from an unidentified source that the financier won’t reveal. “As we’ve built this collection over two or three years we’ve built a good network of agents, managers, producers, directors throughout the world that gives us access to certain items,” Waslam says. “They know we’re a professional investment group and we are looking at the best interests of Madonna, so they will sell these items on to us knowing they won’t be misused.”