During the ’60s and ’70s, Biba was a household name for everybody who was knowledgable in fashion, and the Biba Logo (pictured below) was prominent and instantly recognisable  throughout the UK’s fashion market in these years of revolutionary fashion.

The Biba Logo

As many readers probably know, it was a clothes store, the first of which opened in Abingdon Road in Kensington Sept 1964, and was owned and run by Barbara Hulanicki, as well as partly by her husband, Stephen Fitz- Simon.

Biba’s popularity grew as a result of the “cheap & cheerful” aspect of clothing on offer. As quoted from Wikipedia: “The shops’ main appeal was that an average woman in London could for less than 10% of her weekly earnings share the look of the most glamorous women in Europe. What could be seen on the catwalks in Paris could now be bought with a Biba twist for much less money.”

It was a ground-breaking store which propagated the innovative and gasp- inducing fashions of the ’60s which came about as the result of, largely, Twiggy’s thin frame, short hair and even shorter skirts. Biba made the high-society styles available to the ordinary and everyday and was therefore pivotal in the spread of those instantly recognisable styles of the time- “Although Mary Quant was the first British designer to show the mini skirt, Biba was responsible for putting it on the high street” (1). Hulanicki herself stated: “The Biba Look” or “Dudu Look” was “fresh little foals with long legs, bright faces and round dolly eyes.” She described her customers as: “postwar babies who had been deprived of nourishing protein in childhood and grew up into beautiful skinny people”. The customers which brought the clothes, and the clothes which were sold to the customers fitted into a certain demographic: one which became the everlasting image of the ’60s.

Amazingly, Devoted2Vintage has found a ’60s Biba micro-dress. Click here to view. A lucky find- Biba clothes are, as a rule, hard to come by. This light-grey dress was typical of Hulanikci’s designs- the colours were “funeral-esque”- as she described them, i.e. blacks, greys, mulberrys.

Not only was Biba responsible for the perpretration of major contemporary fashion, but was also unique in its marketing strategies. The iconic art nouveau Biba logo, designed by Anthony Little, was prevalent on and in all products and throughout and about the store which gave the movement its own identity. Little was consistent with the black and gold theme and blacked out all of the store’s windows. I imagine the interior was quite mysterious and sultry as a result. Which complimented the innovative way in which the shop was purposefully arranged. Biba was also the first store to allow “tester” makeup samples. As a quote from Wikipedia perfectly summarises: “Biba was the first to set a standard for brand marketing and the first high street store to create a look for itself.”

For those who remember to reminisce, and for those who don’t to marvel at:

Barbara Hulanicki

Biba cosmetics counter

Biba Boutique

Biba Boutique

Although Biba eventually became lost amongst the edgier and faster-moving styles of the ’80s, it certainly set a high bar in fashion marketing and forever left its mark in the ’70s as an innovative and inspiring fashion store.

(1) Wikipedia- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biba

Sophie Horwood