London museum devotes show to Kylie

Singer Kylie Minogue (L) arrives with stylist William Baker to attend the inauguration party of 'Kylie: The Exhibition' at the Victoria and Albert (V and A) Museum in London February 6, 2007. [Reuters]

Kylie Minogue made an exhibition of herself on Tuesday as one of Britain's most venerable museums staged the first show it has ever dedicated to a pop star.

The Australia pop diva's leopard-skin catsuits and pink-bejeweled corsets were draped across the halls of the Victoria and Albert Museum whose advance bookings record has been broken by the Kylie show.

"I was absolutely speechless," Minogue said after touring the exhibition which displays lavish dresses and outlandish hats from her nine tours.

"It is a very strange feeling, I am honored and overwhelmed," she said after being given a private viewing before an opening night show which was more like a glitzy film premier than a museum launch.

For critics who asked if the exhibition qualified as art, the 38-year-old Minogue said: "Art is what you like or what you don't like."

The exhibition tops a tumultuous two years for Minogue, forced to abandon a world tour in 2005 after being diagnosed with breast cancer.

She underwent successful surgery in Melbourne in May 2005 and a course of chemotherapy in Paris where her former boyfriend, French actor Olivier Martinez has a home.

The couple announced last weekend that their four-year romance had ended, saying the split was "mutual and amicable."