Biba Logo

Ingrid by Beatrice Brandini

In 1964 Biba inaugurated its first store in the heart of London, ten years after what the press of the time defined as “the most beautiful store in the world”. In eleven years she conquered rock stars, actors and extravagant millionaires from the international jet set.

First Biba boutique in London

Biba catalogue, photo Hans Feurer

Born in Warsaw, Barbara Hulanicki, she soon found herself in London, having lost her father, hosted by a wealthy and snobbish relative. Nothing could be further from Barbara’s rebellious character, but certainly that association with her, as she herself admitted, brought her closer to a taste for beauty and fashion.

Biba catalogue

Interior of the Big Biba boutique in London

She began as an illustrator, and then founded, together with her husband, Biba’s Postal Boutique, a clothing mail order company. When the Daily Mirror interviewed her and published a pink and white Vichy checkered dress of her own design, that same item, within a week, was ordered by 17,000 women, effectively starting her dazzling career.

Biba Logo

Biba’s style was a combination of 20s and 30s lines, Liberty prints, glittering, fluid and sparkling fabrics, with an eye to the past. Her clients were Julie Christie (who used Biba trouser suits for the film Darling), Mia Farrow, Barbara Streisand, Brigitte Bardot… beautiful but also strong and indomitable women.

Biba catalog page

She had decided to make different clothes, but above all she had decided to make “democratic” clothes. “I don’t want to make clothes for rich or wealthy women but for people from the street”. Perhaps this is why the press snubbed her. But Biba never gave up, and indeed for her mail order catalogs she enlisted photographers such as Helmut Newton and Sarah Moon, images that will remain legendary.

Twiggy photographed in Biba

After the clothes she expanded her offer by creating wallpapers, lamps, linens, crockery, in short, a perfect lifestyle. She was the first to create a beauty line with dark-skinned women and men in mind. She introduces new colors for the eyes into the palette such as military green or blackberry.

Ingrid Boulting photographed by Sarah Moon

Biba represented a free and light style, spokesperson for Swinging London, whose creator, Barbara Hulanicki, perceived it as a cultural phenomenon before being a custom. But her greatness was above all that of revolutionizing and overthrowing a concept of elitist style that had existed until that moment.

Twiggy photographed by Justin de Villeneuve

The perfect model for the Biba style will be Twiggy, big eyes, embarrassing thinness and very long legs, but also Ingrid Boulting, with the same characteristics, both emblems of that freedom of expression dear to the 60s.

Barbara Hulanicki

Biba boutique, 1965

Biba’s last store, the Big Biba, was divided into seven floors, inside which you could shop, eat and listen to music. At the Rainbow Room restaurant (500 seats), we attended concerts held by singers such as David Bowie. There was also a hanging garden with live flamingos, where you could enjoy tea. Twenty thousand mirrors from China and Morocco. A store that had become the coolest in London at the time. A store that will have inspired Elio Fiorucci for his store in San Babila or Stephen Sprouse for the one in New York.

Mood ’70s by Beatrice Brandini

The exhibition The Biba Story, 1964 -1975 will be open until 8 September 2024 at the Fashion and Textile Museum. An opportunity to understand a disruptive personality, a way of conceiving fashion, and its indispensable communicative power, very modern and close to today’s.

Good life to everyone!

Beatrice