Kylie at the V& A
July 17th 2007 06:29
The Victoria and Albert Museum
I confess I was surprised and intrigued when, on my way from Heathrow to London city last month, I spotted a giant gold and white billboard across the sombre grey façade of the Victoria and Albert Museum. “Kylie, the Exhibition” it read. My memory of the venerable old institution was an early eighties one; grim statues of the noble queen and her consort guarding the entrance, a cavernous lobby echoing with hushed voices and muffled footsteps, halls lined with towering antiquities, rooms full of dark Victoriana, glass cases crammed with booty from the vanished Empire, serious students with shushing teachers and stern, hovering, hmmhmmming attendants. What then, was our Kylie doing here in this bastion of old colonial conquest, of “seen but not heard” patrons and stiff-lipped custodians? And Kylie, what kind of exhibition was it, anyway? I had to find out.
Kylie, the Exhibition at the V&A
So before it closed on June 6, I joined the queue in a lobby loud with tourists, half-term holidaying school kids and families. From off right, just inside the entrance, came the muted thump of recognisable, but not precisely identifiable Minogue music. I collected my (free, thanks to Evian’s sponsorship) ticket and headed up the stairs, under a pink and white Kylie-the-Exhibition-sponsore d-by-Evian banner and was immediately bombarded with light, colour, movement and sound.
From a giant video screen on my right, the baby-faced eighties Kylie, an ingénue with bouncing curls, belted out those old classics – Locomotion running into I should be so Lucky. Below, a line of pre-teen princesses shook their booties and lip-synched along. The left hand wall held her body of work – CDs and videos, their covers a record of the singer’s changing image and evolving style, the whole a testament to a prolific, twenty year career. On the end wall rows of gleaming trophies and plaques detailed the achievements and iconic moments of that career, from 1986 to 2007, from Australia to the UK, across Europe and around the world, with best and most the featured words (Most popular actress 1986, Most popular TV personality, 1987, Best International Female Solo Artist, Best Pop award MTV Europe, 2001, Best Dance Recording) and curiously, among them were Charlene’s khaki overalls by King Gee and those famous 50p gold hot pants from the Spinning Around video.
With a company of closet couturiers and secret stylists (many with notebooks and sketchpads) I wove through the forest of mannequins in famous Kylie costumes, tracing the metamorphosis of the pop singer into the superstar, of the ingénue into the glamorous sophisticate – from I Should Be So Lucky’s pristine pouchy white cheese-cloth tent with pockets, to the saucy 70s roller girl red shirt and denim cut-right-offs, then through lycra, lycra all the way to Can't Get You Out of My Head's slinky, ooh-la-la star-trek robe, then through satin, satin, chiffon and wrist ruffs to It’s In Your Eyes Fee Doran butcher's shop (fly) curtain inspired leather thong dress, then through slinky, shiny, short and sparkly to the Gucci ribbon mini-dress, followed by corsets, corsets, bodices and chokers past the Dolce and Gabbana tiger skin jump suit, then through, trilbies, waistcoats, wrist ruffs and neck ruffs, finally culminating in the next room, with the John Galliano Svarovsky crystal-encrusted, ostrich-feathered swirling, extravaganzas with rippling, spreading trains and towering head-dresses of the Kylie Showgirl and Kylie Showgirl Homecoming Tours.
But most revealing, interesting and refreshingly honest really, were the behind the scenes insights into the Kylie phenomenon. A board detailed the preparations and the costs behind a tour; organization began years in advance (planning, bookings and publicity) the latest tour involved 5 million pounds streling worth video hardware alone, a 1.25 million dollar art deco stage, costumes sewn with 500,000 Svarovsky crystals and hundreds of thousands of ostrich feathers.
A replica of Kylie's dressing room was bizarre but rather touching blend of down-home dinkie die, little girlie things (ugg boots, a koala and kangaroo, home-made cards with mis-spelt wishes in childish printing) and the sophisticated glamour of the super-superstar (the pink Kylie customized mega traveling trunks, the giant sheepskin covered swivel make-up chair, the huge cosmetics case brimming with the best and dearest, the gi-normous jewellery case, the racks of glittering costumes, stands of fabulous head-dresses, rows of exotic footwear and here and there, subtle signs of the sponsor - Evian bottles)
A backstage video of the hours before the 2007 Wembley concert followed the frenzied last minute preparations, as well interviews with Tour Manager Sean Fitzpatrick, dancers, stylist William Baker. From everything that everyone had to say here it was clear that these were committed people, taking their jobs seriously, working together, superstar, dancers, producer, stylist, managers and backstage hands to create another iconic Kylie moment.
Next door, in the On Tour room below another giant screen I la-la-la, la-la, la-la, la-ed and boogied along (yes I admit it!) with another row of impossible princesses, as the tiny icon, dwarfed by her head-dress, danced on a dais at the pinnacle of that art deco stage, while the ostrich feathered heads of her dancers brushed at her feet. And at that moment couldn’t help thinking of Darrel Kerrigan in The Castle "What’s this, darl?" ( eyeing his dessert plate in awe) "It’s just ice-cream, darl!" (slightly impatient) "But it's what you've done with it!" (reverent admiration) And so it is with Kylie, she's just Kylie, daughter of Ron and Carol Minogue from Melbourne, Australia, but it's what they've done with her! Yes, they’ve made her a superstar, an icon “a unique and enduring cultural icon, known the world over”
And just as the concept of the cultural icon has changed with the times, so have museums and so has the Victoria and Albert. It’s the same old stone edifice; the antiquities are still there in those cavernous halls, so is the Victoriana and some of that colonial treasure still remains, although much of it has been restored to its rightful owners. But there’s a place now too for vibrant, involving exhibitions like Kylie and for the high energy, high volume visitors they bring with them.
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