Jean Paul Gaultier creations for Madonna and Kylie to go on show at the Barbican

Wednesday, March 6, 2013
12:26 AM

Madonna’s conical bra is going on show at a London exhibition on the work of fashion designer Jean Paul Gaultier.

An exhibition of Jean Paul Gaultier's will be held at the Barbican next year. Picture: Rainer Torrado/PA Wire

The singer’s famous bra and corsets, which she wore on her 1990 Blonde Ambition World Tour, will feature in a major exhibition devoted to the French couturier at London’s Barbican next year.

The designer described London as “a special place” for him.

More than 140 cutting-edge couture and ready-to-wear garments spanning Gaultier’s entire career will go on show.

Costumes designed for Kylie Minogue, such as the dress she donned in the Like A Drug music video, Dita Von Teese and Bjork will also feature.

Clothes created for Dita Von Teese, pictured on the catwalk for Haute Couture spring/summer 2007 by Jean Paul Gaultier, will be part of the Barbican's exhibition. Picture: Patrice Stable/Jean Paul Gaultier/PA Wire

The Barbican described the show, The Fashion World Of Jean Paul Gaultier: From The Sidewalk To The Catwalk, as a “dynamic installation”, adding that Gaultier “feels retrospectives are about dead people, but he is very much alive”.

It will explore Gaultier’s “fashion world, from his witty and boundary-pushing designs to his ceaseless interest in society, identity and a beauty born of difference”.

Some of the outfits have been lent by Gaultier’s collaborators but most of the garments come from his own personal collection.

The designer said: “I am super excited that the show is coming to London ... I always want to go to London, because London, for me, is a special place.

“In England I’ve got so many souvenirs and I’ve had so many experiences and I must say that the English were the first ones to come to my shows and appreciate my fashion.

“If there is one place other than Paris that I should like to live in, it is London. I’ve got so many connections with London and feel at home there, even sometimes more than Paris.”

He said of the Barbican: “It’s an honour for me because it’s a wonderful gallery and a wonderful place with extraordinary architecture and I think that showing my work there will be beautiful.”

The show, which comes from the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, opens in the UK in April 2014 as part of an international tour but will be adapted for the Barbican.

Other new shows include Pop Art Design, featuring work by 70 artists including Sir Peter Blake and Andy Warhol.

Theatre productions will see David Tennant as Richard II, in the transfer of the production from the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon.

The RSC once had its London home at the Barbican, and asked whether it could return, the venue said that there was a “continuing conversation”.

The Barbican will also celebrate the centenary of English composer Benjamin Britten, the 80th birthday of Sir Harrison Birtwistle and feature a UK premiere by Philip Glass.