SKINNY jeans - Kylie at Kelvingrove

La Minogue's wardrobe doors are now open to Scottish audiences for a four-month-long rummage around her greatest fashion hits

Feature by Lindsay West | 08 Oct 2007

The never dull Glasgay! festival has, in Skinny Jeans' opinion, outdone itself in the fabulosity stakes this year; the big, juicy, Swarovski-encrusted cherry at its summit being the arrival of the Kylie Collection at Kelvingrove. An exhibition so glorious as to tempt a philistine like myself museum-ward (well, they're full of dusty things, aren't they?), La Minogue's wardrobe doors are now open to Scottish audiences for a four-month-long rummage around her greatest fashion hits.

Of course, we have to talk about the hotpants. The most famous 50p ever spent on a pop video and, symbolically speaking, a little lamé landmark signalling Kylie's return from those 90s wilderness years: the point at which, having taken a wrong turn somewhere near James Dean Bradfield, just left of Nick Cave, Kylie spotted her slip, and high-tailed it back to Camp. But don't just hang around the goldwork making Security nervous, there's plenty more to see.

Like the surprisingly shoddily-made canary yellow shift dress from the Hand on Your Heart video: the epitome of cool according to everyone at my primary school, and a memento from a now trippy-looking video involving Kylie making herself dizzy skipping around an atrocious set resembling nothing so much as Pat Sharp's Funhouse. And the D&G robo-babe tour costume that combines two items not used nearly often enough together in everyday life: an eye-watering concentration of Swarovski crystals, and French plaits. How about the halterneck black Julien Macdonald mini-dress from the Brits, which began life as a floor length couture gown, but met with the Minogue scissor-editing process, presumably to allow for a better derriere-cupping angle for Justin Timberlake's sweaty palm during their Blondie tribute. See Julien squealing curse words at the TV! Now see him take them all back as his dress makes the front page of every paper in Europe...

If I ever do pull off that heist, however, walk past all of the above – the glass case with the hole in it will be that of the breathtaking floor length peach crystal and feather Chanel Couture masterpiece worn during the Showgirl Tour. Worth risking jail if only to use as a sock puppet.

Even if you weren't raised on a diet of Charlene Robinson and Je Ne Sais Pas Pour Quoi, run, don't walk, to catch a glimpse of some genuine pop cultural iconography. And, failing this, think of it as a sort of sartorial Legoland: everything's teeny-weeny, but it's all perfectly assembled.

Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow until January 2008