The Biba Story

Very last-minute (it closed today), but I finally got to see The Biba Story: 1964–1975. I missed it when it was at the Fashion and Textile Museum in London, but it was then on tour to the Dovecot Studios in Edinburgh. I can travel again now, and I need very little inducement to visit my birthplace!

Exhibition poster

As with exhibitions at the FTM, very little was behind glass.

Beautifully laid out

The exhibition began with Barbara Hulanicki's first career as a fashion illustrator – she claimed that it was sketching pieces at collection launches which first made her realise how much couture was out of step with youth culture. Along with her husband she launched Biba's Postal Boutique, a small mail-order business, in 1963. One of her designs, for a pink gingham dress and headscarf, appeared in a newspaper feature in summer 1964.

Reproduction of the dress, and the newspaper feature

Its huge success, receiving around 17,000 orders, prompted her to open her first shop in Abingdon Road in Kensington a few months later. Biba clothes were always sold at low price points, but behind this was a keen business sense; for example Abingdon Road and all the subsequent Biba shops opened in the autumn because the price and profit margins on winter coats were much higher than on dresses.

Coat sold in the Abingdon Road shop

Items were produced in very short runs, with new stock appearing almost daily. In 1966 Biba moved to larger premises in Kensington Church Street.

Clothes sold in the Church Street shop

Biba started producing mail-order catalogues in 1968. Carefully designed to fit through letterboxes without getting damaged, and photographed by the likes of Helmut Newton and Sarah Moon, the catalogues brought the Biba experience to customers unable to travel to London,

Biba catalogues (angled to reduce reflections)

Some of the clothes featured in the catalogues

In 1969 Biba moved again, this time to considerably larger premises but still in Kensington. The new store had separate departments for furnishing, accessories and cosmetics as well as clothing. It also had specially designed interiors.

Clothes sold in Kensington High Street shop

Not sure why some displays included vintage workboxes, but I liked it

As ever, prices were kept low by whatever means were available. Although designed (and worn) as evening wear, this garment was sold as a dressing gown because nightwear was subject to a lower rate of tax than daywear!

Very glamorous dressing gown

The Kensington High Street Biba became one of the most profitable stores, per square metre, in the world. Presumably this was what drove the decision to go even bigger. In 1973 Big Biba opened in the former Derry and Toms department store, also on Kensington High Street.

Clothes from Big Biba

The seven-storey building was so large that a Biba newspaper was created to guide shoppers around the premises.

The Biba newspaper

As with the previous store, the interiors had been designed to reflect the full Biba experience.

Hulanicki in the original Derry and Toms

The women's fashion floor

Display in the cosmetics department

Each floor had a separate theme, and as well as selling goods there was also a roof garden and the Rainbow Room restaurant which seated 500.

The Rainbow Room restaurant

Big Biba only lasted two years. The exhibition doesn't go into detail about why it failed, but a Scottish lady I got chatting to at the exhibition offered her own opinion. As a young teenager, she had been desperate to visit Biba, and on a family trip to London persuaded her parents to take her. The only thing she could afford was a small pack of playing cards, but she bought them, "just to get a Biba bag". She also said that her father had commented on how few people were actually buying anything. Perhaps if you make shopping theatre, you have to ensure that people come for more than just the performance.

Biba playing cards

I was too young for either, but I've always felt that I would have been a Biba girl rather than Mary Quant, and this exhibition confirmed that. I could have happily worn most of the clothes on show, but it will be no great surprise that one of my favourites was this 1940s-inspired dress.

It even has a side zip (yes, I checked!)

One this which really struck me though was how much Biba foreshadowed the current fast fashion model. Barbara Hulanicki made cheap, on-trend, clothes to be 'worn now', in limited size ranges to keep costs down. Due to initial difficulties sourcing materials, designs were limited to 500 copies in any one fabric. With the exception of the catalogue clothes, this restriction remained in place, generating a desire among customers not to miss out. Hulanicki was even quoted as saying, "Take it or leave it, but if you wait it won't be here when you come back".

The big difference though is in the quality and detailing. Obviously many of the items in the exhibition were cherished pieces and well cared for by their owners, but the fact remains that they have lasted over 50 years. This cotton chiffon dress has French seams, a narrow edging around the neck, and rouleau ties at the cuffs – all time-consuming construction details in a tricky fabric.

So many fiddly details

Finally, the Dovecot Studio is actually a tapestry weaving studio with exhibition space. In a lovely tie-in between these two elements, one of the tapestry trainees made this piece specially for the exhibition.

Biba logo tapestry