Exhibitions and the role of fashion in the sustenance of the Kylie Brand mythology

Abstract

Central to the logic of the aesthetic economy (Entwistle, 2002) is celebrity culture, the two go hand in hand and the boundaries between them are increasingly blurred in the spirit and name of commerce, capitalism and marketing. Celebrity demands a stage, or better, an exhibition space, a frame for further performance and sustainment of appeal, a space to induce inspiration among followers and fans alike. Celebrity by this reckoning is less about advertising and the transfer of meaning through such overly narrow and confined media processes (McCracken, 1989); rather celebrity affect, as we seek to demonstrate in this paper, works through specific stagings, one such being the celebrity fashion exhibition, where the appeal of celebrity is broadened and staged anew to cultivate new forms of attraction, intimacy and public participation.