The story of Kylie and Dannii Minogue’s midlife fashion comeback
Hang up the hot pants; Kylie Minogue has turned 55. Except, the gold lurex party pants are going nowhere.
Yes, technically the actual ones – which cost 50p from Camden Market – may have been auctioned off for charity long ago, but the sentiment remains. Kylie’s as much a consummate, unashamed showgirl as she’s always been – she seems unlikely to take up the sensible linens and comfy flats of other women in her age range.
The nation’s adopted sweetheart is more in demand than ever. Her new song Padam Padam (if you haven’t heard it, prepare for some brain augmenting level of earworm) went to number one in the UK Big Top 40, and promptly spawned viral videos across social media. Her wine range, launched three years ago this week, has seen a sales surge; the rosé was up by 314 per cent last year and it’s seriously respected by hardened oenophiles. Not bad for a girl from the wrong side of Ramsay Street.
Then there’s the re-emergence of her sister, Dannii Minogue, courtesy of new dating show I Kissed A Boy (think Love Island for gay men, with considerably worse clothing on the contestants), and a new single by way of the theme song. Truly, we are in a new Minoguean era, and what’s apparent is that the sisters have never been more at ease with their sense of style.
Kylie’s “new” look, showcasing a series of hooded silk gowns and scarlet bodysuits, is something of a fashion homecoming, circling back to the glamour we know her for after a foray into more downplayed, rustic territory –dusty denims and plaid shirts – with her 2018 album, Golden.
Kylie (there will only ever be one Kylie for a certain generation of geriatric millennials like me; Jenner doesn’t hold a candle to the original) has gone through myriad style incarnations, but always seems happiest at her most glamorous, feminine and with a tinge of vamp but never overtly cartoonish. That’s currently courtesy of stylist Frank Strachan, who’s evolved her look in her 50s to focus on a wardrobe that the public know her for – floral summer dresses, candy-hued suits and spangles aplenty, with doses of fashion nous; the singer’s been wearing the clothes of Dion Lee, a relatively under-the-radar Sydney-based designer.
That isn’t to say that the elder Ms Minogue doesn’t experiment with fashion; in fact, breaking the style mould is how she managed to evolve away from the frizzy-haired Stock, Aitken and Waterman pop puppet to something more serious and respected.
This kicked off in the 1990s during her raucous love affair with the late Michael Hutchence; suddenly the perm was out, in favour of a directional pixie crop and serious fashion credentials by way of Vivienne Westwood corsetry and Versace vampishness.
Fresh from her depictions as a drowning Ophelia for a collaboration with Master of Darkness Nick Cave in the mid-1990s – how’s that for turning your back on the squeaky-clean popstress image? – she embraced 1990s minimalism with her Impossible Princess era circa 1997.
Kylie came back refreshed and reloaded in the 2000s with her call-to-arms hit for the new millennium, Spinning Around, and with it a wardrobe with serious high-fashion credentials. Working with then-stylist William Baker, a cult name in cool London circles, she curated outfits with Dolce & Gabbana and Chanel.
She also began to champion new London design talent, storming the bar at cult East End club BoomBox in hip designers Gareth Pugh and Pam Hogg. All of which feeds into the Kylie style of today; just enough contemporary punchiness to hold her fashion credentials – see those vampish red leggings and corsetry in her Padam Padam video, but glamorous, camp and girl-next-door. Perhaps I’m biassed – as a young boy in the 1980s I used to carry her VHS video like a security blanket – but Kylie’s settled into a look that shows confidence in just being her.
If Kylie’s the pop star, her little sister Dannii’s evolved in recent years as more of a safe and familiar TV presence; first with the 2000s-era X Factor and now presenting her new reality TV show amidst the olive trees and trulli of Puglia.
Her arrival among the Mediterranean scrub once a week was always going to draw gasps from a bunch of cooped-up gay men. She knows her audience. But she does look fantastic at 51; like her sister, she’s arrived at a harmonious sweet spot of what suits her – fairytale gowns, senorita-style vermillion flounces and disco jumpsuits. It’s nothing experimental, nor particularly boundary pushing, but she looks damn good.
Dannii’s always been somewhat less agenda-setting than her sister in terms of style – see the polite blandness of her fashion line Project D and collaborations with Target – but if Kylie’s the spangled showgirl then Dannii’s the one most women would happily look like, particularly on their summer holiday.
Pop-star style has evolved into something more tiresome and earnest in recent years. Lady Gaga’s retired the meat dress, but taking up the look-at-me mantle are a host of singers painfully attempting “controversy” – Sam Smith in their nipple tassels – or attempting to be achingly anti-fashion, hello Billie Eilish in dreary old sweaters looking like a grumpy teenager who’s had her iPhone confiscated.
Which is why the Minogue masterclass is so pleasingly uncomplicated, joyous and women-friendly. The higher the heels, the glitzier the sparkles and the bolder the lipstick; it’s a high-key, merrily camp approach in an era of earnest politicising statements and lack of effort, from two women who have been dismissed as pop flotsam, pitted against each other like only misogyny can and written off.
Call me old-fashioned, but I’d rather see the pair smiling gloriously and triumphantly – and looking glorious wearing Dion Lee sequins – together at Sydney Pride earlier this year than I would some worthy Gen Zedder in a saggy pair of cargo trousers and slogan T-shirt supporting Oat Latte Identity Day. There’s a reason we can’t get the Minogues out of our heads.
