Founded by Barbara Hulanicki
Born: Warsaw, Poland, 1936
Barbara Hulanicki's biography, From A to Biba (1983), is dedicated `To All Optimists, Fatalists and Dreamers', a fitting introduction to a story of extraordinary vision and retail invention, which captured the imagination of a generation. Biba was the parting shot of the 1960s: the seminal moment of shopping without cynicism.
Biba's creator, Barbara Hulanicki, started as a fashion artist and began Biba's Postal Boutique in the early 1960s. Her first dress - a gingham shift with matching headscarf - sold via the Daily Mirror for 25 shillings. The first Biba shop, formerly a small chemist's in Abingdon Road, Kensington, London, was opened in 1964. A series of publicity coups followed: Cathy McGowan, the hip presenter of the pop programme Ready Steady Go, wore a Biba smock dress on television, and Biba provided the wardrobe for the film Darling (1965), staring Julie Christie. Biba moved to bigger premises on Kensington High Street in 1969, and Hulanicki's ultimate dream came true in 1973 when the label took over the magnificent Derry and Toms department store - a huge Art Deco space with original fittings.
Hulanicki's attention to detail knew no bounds: Biba was an oasis of gorgeousness, where customers could buy tins of beans and feather boas, black and plum lipsticks, each with Biba's logo of lacquered black and swirling gold. A mesmerizing monument to Art Deco and Art Nouveau, the interior was described by Vogue in 1973 as `a palace of apricot marble, coloured counters and fake leopardskin walls. Six floors of pure 1930s fantasy.' Although visually stunning, the venture was commercially unsound, the store too huge, the lighting too dark. Biba became a financial nightmare and a shoplifters' paradise. Declared bankrupt in 1976, Hulanicki moved to Brazil and then to Miami Beach, Florida, where she has turned her talent to designing hotels.
