Style icon Kylie's hotpants go on show at the V&A; museum

Last updated at 11:24 15 January 2007

One event this spring that will make you fall in love with fashion, and remind you how much work, willpower and energy is needed by the bucketload to be a global pop star and a style icon, is the Kylie exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum.

Kylie had to abandon her Showgirl Homecoming concert in Manchester on Saturday night due to a heavy bout of flu and has since cancelled two more dates.

But the fact that she performed at all shows the steeley determination that has propelled her to icon status.

Any other star would have simply cancelled the show altogether, yet our Kylie donned her sequins and feather plumes to sing five songs, before she announced: 'I'm sorry and I've never had to do this in my career before - but I can't sing on.'

The exhibition is a retrospective of the two decades since Kylie burst into the public consciousness as Charlene on the Australian soap Neighbours. (Yes, the denim dungarees will be on show, axle grease intact, as well as that awful muslin dress with outsize pockets from the 1987 video for I Should Be So Lucky.)

It is also an intimate portrait of how a girl became a woman, how she shed the bubble perm and the snow-washed, high-waisted denim, made her own decisions, became beautiful and sexy by sheer force of will, and emerged stronger, wiser and lovelier than ever.

For all the recent interviews about her brush with breast cancer, Kylie is a very private person and the wonderful thing about this exhibition is how much it reveals about her.

Not just her dress size (a UK six); her shoe size (four); or her height (5ft 1in - the diminutive mannequins for the exhibition had to be specially made). But also her fierce loyalty, her sense of humour and her bravery.

The retrospective, with more than 50 costumes from videos, photo shoots and all seven of her world tours, culminates with four new costumes hot off the boards of her current tour.

John Galliano's 'Samsara' dress - a Sanskrit word meaning rebirth - and a leopardprint catsuit by Dolce & Gabbana in which she sang a duet with Bono are here, still almost warm.

'Visitors will be able to see the sketches, the swatches and the toils that go into the making of each costume, and even walk backstage to enter a replica of Kylie's dressing room, complete with make-up, teddies, fan mail and flowers,' says Vicky Broackes, who curated the exhibition for the V&A.

Missing, though, is the row of backstage washing machines, always on the go, stuffed with glittery costumes.

The difference between the tour clothes and those worn on videos and in photo shoots is that they have to be both beautiful and able to withstand being washed up to 30 times and ripped off in costume changes that take 30 to 40 seconds. (Kylie has three dressers.)

Clearly visible are the Velcro'd seams, the worn patches where the microphone pack was hooked, sweat stains and general wear and tear, which means two of each design always have to be made.

The physical demands of each show means Kylie's weight plummets as a tour progresses, and you can see where the clothes had to be taken in, sometimes with a last-minute bulldog clip.

All the teeny tiny shoes are here, too, most by Manolo Blahnik.

It is rare for a performer to have such a complete collection, but Kylie has always loved fashion, even though she didn't get it right in the early days.

Back then she would make her own outfit for a red carpet event, and for the first tour, with a minuscule budget, her mum and her nan were enlisted to help with the costumes. It took three weeks for her mum to sew the sequins on one dress alone.

It was her dad, Ron, who in May 2003 first contacted Janine Barrand, manager of collections and research at the Arts Centre in Kylie's home town of Melbourne, to announce that Kylie wanted to donate more than 600 costumes and accessories which she had rescued from bin bags, cupboards and lofts all around the world.

'It is a significant collection,' said Janine, confirming Kylie's status as a style icon, up there with David Bowie and Madonna (the Material Girl hasn't been honoured with a V&A retrospective).

'Kylie found it amusing that garments that had been thrown on the floor between numbers were suddenly being handled with such reverence by specialists in white gloves.'

The exhibition, which Kylie describes as 'everything from cobbled together to couture', is a tribute to her stylist and creative director, William Baker.

They first met in 1994, when William was working as a shop assistant at Vivienne Westwood's shop in Conduit Street, London.

They went for coffee and have been friends ever since. He was a pop culture junkie and, with his love of punk, the London club scene, and friends including milliner Philip Treacy and stylist Isabella Blow, he encouraged Kylie to dress decadently, with an injection of humour.

A big influence was the late Michael Hutchence, who Kylie dated when she was 21. Before Hutchence, she had never oozed sex appeal. Overnight, it seemed, she was dabbling in black leather bondage wear.

Then came the video for Better The Devil You Know, the first time she wore her now trademark hot pants, and the first outfit that signalled her arrival as a style icon.

The biggest designers in the world, including Karl Lagerfeld at Chanel, were soon clamouring to work with her.

The creative process is a menage a trois involving Kylie, William and the designer - Kylie loves to throw in buzz words, and tear sheets from a magazine, or a photograph to inspire everyone.

Her outfits cherry pick from punk, the Eighties London club scene, art deco, Warhol and even episodes of Dynasty.

What I love about the costumes is that they aren't remotely about being cool, or up to date, although Kylie did make the covers of Pop, I-D, Dazed & Confused, and numerous issues of Vogue and Elle.

You learn that Kylie has never taken herself too seriously, preferring to experiment: she was the first to wear high heels with combat trousers and brought hotpants back into fashion.

The exhibition is unafraid to showcase her mistakes. The hideous Eighties outfits are here: shoulder pads; ra-ra skirts and T-shirt dresses, even the Red Or Dead platform shoes she wore for her third video.

She loves to unearth new talent, championing early on British designers Marios Schwab, Owen Gaster, Gareth Pugh and Roland Mouret, and has remained loyal to the Australian designers who first dressed her, as well as the more quirky names whose pieces she bought when she first came to London, such as Stevie Stewart and David Holah of Bodymap.

But her most enduring relationship with a designer has been that with Julien Macdonald - his sparkly cobwebs are to Kylie what Jean Paul Gaultier's conical bra and pinstripes were to Madonna.

'Kylie, the bubbles in the champagne - 100 per cent all woman, wrapped up in a little package with a big red crystal bow,' says Macdonald.

Kylie's growing confidence in her body and her looks can be traced across the years. She often describes herself without all the glitter and make-up as 'plain' and, says Baker, is uncomfortable being described as an icon.

All the red carpet gowns are on display, such as the blue silk fringe dress by Rafael Lopez that just about concealed her chest for meeting Prince Charles at a Royal Variety performance, and the pink silk corset dress by Australian designer Xen-Pardoe Miles for the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.

Kylie has a huge gay following and once said: 'I think gay men relate to my initial struggle to be accepted.'

You soon realise Kylie never wears the same thing twice, or has a day when she can't be bothered, on or off duty.

'There is something genuine about the way she dresses. She has an almost old-fashioned sense of style,' William Baker has said. 'Girl next door crossed with Hollywood siren.'

Evian is sponsoring Kylie: The Exhibition at the V&A from February 8 to June 10 and is enabling the public to enjoy free admission.

The exhibition moves to the Manchester Art Gallery and Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow.

The catalogue is out on February 5, at £19.99.