Celebrating Biba, the brand synonymous with Sixties style | OPZ9297 | 2024-03-30 14:08:01
Celebrating Biba, the brand synonymous with Sixties style | OPZ9297 | 2024-03-30 14:08:01
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Beneath its legendary founder Barbara Hulanicki, Biba rose from a mail-order catalogue to a seven-storey department store on Kensington Excessive Road. By no means earlier than had an organization introduced reasonably priced trend to the youth market, in a transfer that came to encourage the high road as we all know it. Hulanicki was a real trend revolutionary, creating the primary full cosmetic vary for black pores and skin, and actively supporting the nascent queer group by advertising within the gay press, 20 years before corporations reminiscent of Dolce & Gabbana have been to do the same.
Displaying the best way during which Biba democratised style, the exhibition starts with a reproduction of the primary ever mail-order Biba gown: a shift in pink gingham with a cutout again and matching headband, which shortly turned a bestseller. A yr later, Biba opened its first boutique on Abingdon Street, which turned a centre for London's coolest clientele, including Twiggy, Mick Jagger, Pattie Boyd, The Beatles, Cher and Anita Pallenberg.
The exhibition charts the rise of Biba and Hulanicki's radical and daring vision by way of more than 40 outfits — from maxi clothes and hacking jackets to trouser suits and bias-cut satin night clothes — reflecting influences as numerous as 1930s Hollywood and the Pre-Raphaelite and Artwork Nouveau movements. These will probably be displayed alongside a number of Barbara Hulanicki's unseen trend illustrations, which show not solely the development of the model and its designs, however Hulanicki's distinctive expertise as a style illustrator.
"Barbara Hulanicki's work as a trend illustrator, starting in the late 1950s, informed her designs for Biba," says Dennis Nothdruft, head of exhibitions at the museum. "Hulanicki was a highly profitable business illustrator and in her drawings we will see the development of her personal type from Parisian couture to the Biba look. This mirrored the wider cultural shifts in society."
Another section of the exhibition is devoted to the Biba catalogues, which brought the brand to the rest of the UK. Photographed by Helmut Newton and Sara Moon, the graphics of the catalogues had a distinctive type that made them prompt collectors' gadgets.
By September 1973, Biba had opened its monumental Kensington division store, promoting own-brand products packaged within the distinctive Biba type, with flooring dedicated to residence furnishings, make-up and equipment, clothing for ladies, men and youngsters, and even a food hall. The whole lot was obtainable at 'Huge Biba', from baked beans to wallpaper; there was also the famous roof garden (the most important in Europe) and The Rainbow Rooms, a 500-seater restaurant.
The exhibition's upstairs galleries showcase a choice of the life-style merchandise that have been on sale, demonstrating how, in simply 10 years, Biba had transcended its origins as a mail-order enterprise to turn into the primary way of life emporium: a model that, like all of Hulanicki's inventions, has continued to inspire many years later.
'The Biba Story: 1964 to 1975′& is on till 8 September 2024.
This article originally appeared on Harper's BAZAAR UK.
</div> </div> The submit Celebrating Biba, the brand synonymous with Sixties style appeared first on Harper's Bazaar Australia.
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