“I don't like the way I looked, but the classic Biba girl had all the attributes I lacked. She was very pretty and young. She had an upturned nose, rosy checks, and a skinny body with long asparagus legs and tiny feet. She was square shouldered and flat chested. He head was perched on a long, swan-like neck. Her face was a perfect oval, her lids were heavy with long spiky lashes. She looked sweet but was hard as nails. She did what she felt like at that moment and had no mum to influence her judgement.”
I've doing a bit of Biba/ Barbara Hulanicki obsessing recently, ever since visiting the Biba exhibition in Brighton and coming across acouple of books including Barbara's autobiography - A to Biba. The first Biba store was a small Chemist’s shop in Abingdon Road, but by the time Biba’s doors closed in 1976 it had evolved into an elaborate 5-story Art Deco department store with a restaurant and a roof garden overlooking High Street Kensington.
Barbara is incredibly inspiring and interesting for a number of reasons.
- She personifies a period of massive change in social norms and lifestyles all over the world. As a young teenager, her mother and aunt tried to bring her up to be a 50s Grace Kelly-style debutante (albeit on a budget) and were appalled when she decided to take a job as a fashion illustrator.
- Like anyone else, she had plenty of insecurities but despite feeling out of place, always found a way to go to the Paris fashion week and get into the best shows to do sketches she could sell to the best newspapers at home.
- She never trained as a fashion designer but turned herself into one. She entered fashion design competitions and building up support among fashion editors and reporters at the time.
- She spotted a huge gap in the market for decent ready-to-wear clothes and pretty much invented the British High Street.
- ...but even though her clothes were always affordable, her shops became a pitstop for artists, film stars and rock musicians, including Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones, David Bowie and Marianne Faithful among the regulars.
- She formed a great business partnership with her husband Stephen Fitz-Simon. A great partnership because he brought business nous and a bullish personality to compliment her creativity. If only every self-effacing woman in business could make up for her meekness so easily!
"In the buoyant mid-sixties they all had jobs and were not used to eating massive meals. They were the post war babies who had been deprived of nourishing protein in childhood and grew up into beautiful skinny people. A designer’s dream. It didn't take much for them to look outstanding. The simpler the better, the shorter the better. Their legs seemed to be never ending. Suddenly London was filled with long-legged boys and girls who became envied all over the world. The boys and girls started to travel on new all-in cheap holidays and to pick up continental elegance too."
"Nutcases in the shop were common. One day a young girl came in stark naked except for a mini leather coat open at the front. She held a basket containing a large axe. She went up to the hatstands, gathering a few dresses in her arms and strolled to the changing rooms, took a while choosing the dress she liked most, put it on, replaced her leather coat, picked up her basket and walked out of the shop. No one was brave enough to stop her."
"At 26, Fitz and I felt much older than the others[working in the shop], like mum and dad. We worried about the girls and their fast life. Some could many fell by the wayside by nineteen.... I know when I was eighteen I used to take a pill in the morning to feel like I was jumping from the moment I opened my eyes, and I suppose it was the same. Sometimes I pinched one of my mother’s purple hearts which the doctor prescribed for her to lift her spirits when she was low. It's quite funny to think how many middle-aged women in the sixties were unknowingly reliant on amphetamines."
"I don't think our [shop]girls were promiscuous, they picked and chose. If they fancied someone they went right out and got what they were after instead of weaving webs and hypocritical traps, as we had to in the fifties. In their flats and bedsits they had no mother waiting for them to see if they came home with a crumpled dress."
"It was through absolute ignorance that the mini reached the street. The short skirt was on the way but it had only been seen in show rooms. Courreges had made a strong impression with his space age dresses. Mary Quant was the first British designer to show the mini but I still say our dear old Theo Savva was the man responsible for putting the mini on the high street. When the jersey allocated for a little suit arrived at his factory it was steaming hot from the finishers. As Fitz bombarded Theo with telephone calls for more and more stock for the opening of our shop. Theo cut the somewhat stretchy double jersey with out resting it. Jersey that is not rested soon relaxes itself back to its proper width. It was not the uncut jersey that rested, it wad the skirts! When I saw the delivery I nearly had a heart attack. The skirts were only ten inches long. God, I thought, we'll go bust, we'll never be able to sell them. I couldn't sleep, but that little fluted shop walked out on customers as fast as we could get it onto hatstands."
"I am untidy for long spells, but after a while when things get out of control, I have bursts of obsessive housework. When our home became so cluttered with statues and objects collected in junk shops that you couldn't move without breaking something, I found a novel way of dusting - with my hair dryer. The process was very laborious but it didn't feel like housework, it was much more industrial. There were no domestic sacrifices on my part."
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