Kylie's Clothes Travel To London


Left: Off to the opening! Kylie Minogue and her stylist, William Baker.


Does a museum damage its credibility by featuring a pop star? I suppose it depends on the museum, but I would think anything that brings in the people is better than empty halls!:

Are Kylie Minogue's gold lame hotpants art, or even culturally significant?

That was the question being asked in London as an exhibition of the Australian pop star's costumes opened at the Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A).

Advance booking records have been broken by the Kylie show, which displays costumes ranging from leopard skin catsuits and pink-bejewelled corsets to the dungarees she wore in 1988 as mechanic Charlene in Neighbours.

Also on show are the gold hotpants, bought for 50 pence and sported in the video for her 2000 hit single Spinning Around.

"I was absolutely speechless," Minogue, 38, said after touring the exhibition. "It is a very strange feeling, I am honoured and overwhelmed," she said following a private viewing before an opening night show which was more like a glitzy film premier than a museum launch.

Minogue, appearing days after announcing her split from long-term boyfriend Olivier Martinez, dazzled on the red carpet in a purple, backless Dolce and Gabbana gown. ... But the exhibition, already seen in Sydney and Melbourne, has provoked claims the V&A is dumbing down to appeal to the masses - chasing crowds not quality.

Cultural commentator Stephen Bayley said he feared current London exhibitions featuring Minogue and Kate Moss were "a capitulation to the cult of celebrity". Minogue was unfazed by the row.

"Art is what you like or what you don't like," she said. "There's all the questions about should the V&A do this, if people are so concerned about the V&A and respecting what they do, this was the V&A's invitation to me and I gladly said yes."

V&A director Mark Jones said the show was a way of understanding celebrity. "We are a museum for design in all its forms. The V&A is not an art gallery. It is a museum of contemporary and historic design," he said.

... "Were it not for my parents, I'm sure this collection would be the size of a suitcase rather than an exhibition space."