“From our point of view, this isn’t a ‘pop’ exhibition,” says V&A spokesperson Meera Hindocha. “It is a fun exhibition, aimed at a younger audience, but it draws on the themes of fashion, style, contemporary culture, performance and the creation of a contemporary, popular icon. The V&A is a museum of design and these ideas and concepts all draw on the V&A’s permanent collection.”
She’s talking about the V&A’s recent crowd-pleaser, Kylie: The Exhibition, which traces the career of the Aussie pop princess through an in-depth look at her outfits: the gold lame hotpants which she bought for 50p and wore triumphantly in the video for Spinning Around, spawning a slightly unhealthy national obsession with her bottom; the dungarees she donned to play the much-adored Charlene in Neighbours; a spectacular gown designed by X, adorned with pictures of her own face. The cult of celebrity is one of our defining modern obsessions, and museums like the V&A, with their history of cultural analysis, seem perfectly placed to analyse it. Why, then, has the Kylie exhibition ruffled so many critical feathers?
