Before the Gaultier hardware-bustiers and satiny retro-Marilyn glamour, before the S&M chic of SEX, and long before the tastefully tailored couture of Evita, there was what will go down in history as The Madonna Look. As the elusive Susan, Madonna was a model of thrift-store flash and street-smart seductiveness-a sartorial attitude that would prove highly contagious, infecting both the film's hapless protagonist, Roberta (Rosanna Arquette), and legions of identity-seeking mall girls across 1980s America. Housewife Roberta, vaguely discontented with her pink-tinted New Jersey life, develops a special fascination with free spirit Susan. When Roberta manages to snag Susan's distinctive jacket in a second-hand store, she also finds the keys to Susan's identity, and accidentally lets herself in. The change of costume is a mistake, but it ultimately liberates parts of Roberta's "real" self that might otherwise have stayed forever under wraps-an argument for the life-changing power of costume jewelry, midriff-baring, and the black bustier.-Juliet Clark