Lucky lucky lucky

I think it's fair to say that I have always liked Kylie Minogue. When I was twelve or something, I bought I should be so lucky. It's not like it was cool or anything, I just heard the song on the radio and I thought it was completely brilliant. Thereafter, I bought all her records. All of them. Every album, every single. I remember when I was at school going down to the town and buying Enjoy Yourself on the Monday it was released and hurrying back. As I returned, I passed a couple of cool older youths who asked me what I had bought. 'The (far more cred) Cure', I lied, and burnt with shame at my inner weakness.

It's not like I am an obsessional fan. I don't hang around her back door and have only actually seen her in concert a couple of times, plus I'm not sure I have all the live albums. I just always loved her music. That she turned out to be the most sensational gay icon seems pretty coincidental to me. I am sure there are plenty of other gays who just happened to like her and buy all her records and then it became one of those things. Anyway, there's some top line background-type-stuff.

It's worth mentioning all this because last night I saw Kylie. In fact, I didn't just see Kylie, I stood about a metre from her as she delivered a speech opening her dresses exhibit at the V&A.

Don't believe me? Alright. Try this for size:

Kylie, William Baker and many, many Bulgari diamonds

Kylie, with the chairman of the V&A behind to her left and the director of the Arts Centre, Melbourne under the word 'plan'

Pretty cool, hey?

So, at these things there tend to be a number of celebrities, right?

Right.

Here's (the amazing) Dita von Teese.

... and DJing, blurry Gilles Peterson

... and Boy George

... and I also saw Jasper Conran and that permatanned poison-tongued Julien MacDonald. I'm sure Jasper wouldn't normally want to be even in the same sentence as Julien (let alone room) and in fact, thrillingly, I saw those queens totally ignore each other as they passed at the party last night. Unfortunately I didn't take photographs of them because my camera just couldn't cope with the excitement.

And why was I in such esteemed company? Well, because I had been asked along by TT. As it happens, he didn't really like the show very much, and gets into the debate about whether it was right or wrong for the V&A to put on the show or not [edit: see comments for TT's clarification of his views]. This debate was also mentioned during a speech by the unimaginably queeny arts editor of the Sunday Times who proceeded to say such debate was a load of rubbish because the exhibition was lots of fun (I'm paraphrasing here). Suffice it to say, it wasn't exactly the most analytical argument he ever put.

I attended with AW, and having schmoozed up the red carpet through the pink-lit portals of the V&A, we were both beside ourselves with excitement at the whole thing. It's not every day you attend a party that fabulous, and it totally zinged in all the right places. It had been on my mind that I might come home with a husband, and indeed I saw there a man so beautiful that it almost took my breath away. However, he stood aloof, on a higher plane, as indeed did many of the super-duper cool gays who could barely even focus on their honey martini, let alone a face across a crowded room. I bet they all secretly bought Kylie albums in the 1980s and hid them from the cool kids, though.

The Kylie party at the V&A; the most beautiful man who ever lived

The show is not actually particularly large - effectively three rooms, but it does showcase a lot of stuff which is naggingly familiar. It's like seeing family photos from childhood that you thought you'd lost. The overwhelming impression one gets is just how unfathomably tiny she is. Of course, having stood so close her, this wasn't a massive surprise but even so, her waist is so miniscule that those little white shorts she wore in the Spinning Around video could be used as a drag queen's sweatband.

The Can't Get You Out Of My Head dress

Kylie's Spinning around comeback hotpants

Feathers, feathers, feathers, by John Galliano

All around the room were Kylie's record sleeves. As I mentioned, I have them too, but as I went from one to another, I noticed that the perfect chronology of seven-inch records were occasionally interrupted by a random CD single or Japanese import. It's a shame. I could have filled in the gaps. Come to think of it, the V&A curators, or indeed Kylie herself, could still give me a call.

It's never too late.

Comments

[Tim Teeman]

Well, it's not that I think the V&A were wrong to put it on. I think the idea of a Kylie exhbition is great. It's just that there's no depth to it. Maybe that's fine. It's free, it's fun, it's zippy, it's homo heaven. The issue is, once you put on a show about Kylie anywhere - but especially somewhere with the stature of the V&A - shouldn't that mean you approach your subject with the same care and rigour you'd apply to a definitive show of Etruscan ironware or surrealist design (the V&A's next big show)...

[Richard Chapman]

Thanks for clarifying, and I do agree.

[xolondon]

So you WERE so lucky, all these years later. I would have been misty-eyed if I were you, quoting Neil Tennant, "I never dreamed that I would get to be / the kind of creature I always meant to be."

My friends tell me we went to the Westwood show in 2004, but I don't remember it AT ALL! One would assume the Kylie show is about necessary $ (I don't know how to type BPS here in America!) for the V&A and, with a higher goal, luring in the masses to see an art museum. ???

It seems too early for a Kylie show of this nature, doesn't it? She's not 40, it's only in the past 4-ish years that she has really started to climb into int'l LEGEND status. I would think the forthcoming costumes and stylings will be backed with the cash to get more Galliano, etc.

I have seen the last two Costume Inst shows at the Met (Coco and Anglomania) and wonder when Madonna will consent. Probably not for awhile yet. In M's case, I bet some fashionista is already doing his/her best Derrida on her iconic clothes and how the music/private life mix with the flow of her costume choices.

PS: Good thing Dita escaped Marilyn Manson. She is too good for him.

And William Baker looks more dashing now. He used to project a Queer As Folk club boy thing. I still think her newest tour costumes are shit. Minus the dress she wore "on the moon" for the first round of Showgirl.

[Richard Chapman]

AW and I concur about William Baker. He looked very hot. When I saw earlier video of him talking in the exhibition we couldn't believe it's the same guy. It's abundantly clear: that queen lost a stone, got a haircut.

Yes I was quite heart-in-mouth to be directly in front of her. It was a very cool experience.

Can't help concurring about the timing of the show, but I am not sure how much she had to do with it and to what extent it was a little show that the Arts Centre in Melbourne put on, which has now transferred to London, only bigger and better. When compared to Madonna's career and stature, KM has a way to go. Still, it is twenty years on. Not a bad point to look back, certainly for the fabulous Miss Minogue.