Madonna's conical bra to go on show at the Barbican

Madonna's conical bra is going on show at an exhibition on the work of fashion designer Jean Paul Gaultier.

The singer donned the famous bra and corsets on her 1990 Blonde Ambition World Tour.

They will feature in a major exhibition devoted to the French couturier at London's Barbican next year.

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 - as well as creations made for Dita Von Teese and Bjork will also feature.

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.

Barbican director Sir Nicholas Kenyon said that the venue had enjoyed one of its most successful years in 2012, and that the feared drop in audiences at the end of the London Olympics had not materialised.

Audiences for events at the centre, which featured hit shows on the Bauhaus and 50 years of Bond, rose to over one million, with a 14% rise from 2011.

More than 70,000 people recently visited a rain room installation, which closed at the weekend.

Sir Nicholas said of making commercial use of the venue: "There has been a government belief that philanthropy can simply cover the gap that is opening up (in arts funding). I think if you talk to others, this is not the case.

"Of course we are developing philanthropy ... but in terms of actually making the sums add up, that increase in commercial activity will be a necessary part of it."

PA