The Biba Story: Fashion Illustrations

As you know when I pop down to London for a visit I like to combine the primary purpose of my trip with a bit of culture. Sometimes that’s a walk around the shops in Regent Street, and sometimes if I can I like to combine it with visiting an exhibition. Last summer (yes, I know it’s taken a while to share these) I was able to do just that and dragged MOH along to the Biba exhibition at the Fashion & Textiles Museum in Bermondsey. Which despite growing up and living in London until a year or so before I’d never been to, but that’s how it goes sometimes isn’t it.

It’s a great museum, and one I’m sure I’ll be back to in the future. If you’ve not discovered this already it’s ‘the only UK museum dedicated to showcasing contemporary fashion and textile design’ and was set up by Dame Zandra Rhodes in 2003, and is housed in a very distinctive, and very Zandra building - it’s definitely easy to spot as you approach it!

I’d heard of Biba, the shops and the clothes, but didn’t really know much more as in the mid-seventies I was under ten years old, which is a pretty good excuse I’d say! But I knew how iconic it was, and was keen to learn more - and while it wouldn’t be the number one thing that MOH would choose to go to, he was happy to come along, which was just as well as I’d got him a ticket!

The exhibition shares the Biba story from 1964 when the first Biba Boutique opened to 1975 when the legendary Big Biba closed its doors; it explores how Biba blossomed to become the world’s first lifestyle label which ‘sparked a revolution in how people shopped’ and how Biba became the brand that epitomises the 60s and 70s fashion.

In this post I’m sharing some of the fashion illustrations by Barbara Hulanicki who established a mail-order company selling affordable fashion appealing to a new generation of young women. I’ll share more of the clothes and the lifestyle brand in future posts next month.

Barbara had a natural aptitude for art, and that became her refuge following the assassination of her father. She studied fashion at Brighton Art School (now the University of Brighton) and started her first career as a fashion illustrator in 1957 where she covered the Paris couture shows for publications such as Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar, as well as working on British newspapers.

The show notes said that ‘as one of the most in-demand fashion illustrators of the period’ she had close contact with those putting on the couture shows, and their collections and she realised ‘how out of step they were with the emerging world of youth culture and the lives of young women’.

What’s interesting to me is seeing how the illustrations change, the earlier ones which I assume are from the couture shows are of designs which are much more formal - and very reminiscent of ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ even though the film wasn’t released until 1961, based on the novella published in 1958, so I may need to revise my thoughts on who influenced who!

The illustration on the left below from circa 1963 still retains some of that formality, but the other two images are much more informal - and the central one especially includes bold colours and patterns.

It was in 1963 that Barbara established Biba’s Postal Boutique whilst continuing with her career as a fashion illustrator - and what’s also fascinating to me is how many of these styles, both the formal and more informal designs, could still easily be worn today - and in fact probably are!

My favourite illustration from this part of the exhibition is the one above. Doesn’t the colour and the design just sing out, and oh to have that much talent for designing and drawing these too.

It was truly a fascinating exhibition, and looking back over my photos, it was great to be able to go along and see so much of the story first hand - I’ll share more next month of the clothes and the Biba lifestyle brand, and I’m sure some of the clothes influenced clothes I wore growing up as even though I wasn’t yet in double figures the styles were very familiar.

Brutalist buildings, a library and a signal box

Recently I got a bit of a surprise when I opened Instagram, there in front of me was a picture of the library in the town where I grew up, but instead it was now called The Brutalist Library SE25. And you know what, I’d never considered it as this - yes it was a modern building, and one that was quite different in style to those around it, but to me it was just the library. The place to while away hours (and hours) and even sometimes the place to complete secondary school homework.

And since then I don’t think I’ve ever really given in too much thought, so to see it on my Instagram feed was quite a surprise. It turns out that it’s had a bit of a fight on its hands, as libraries have tended to over the years, but it’s still there - and from the photos I’ve seen still looks very much like it did back in the late 1970s and 1980s.

Though I did notice that the circular planters out the front had been changed for a new mosaic - and when I say new, this mosaic is now almost 20 years old! But even so it was good to see it still there, still a library and it reminded me how many memories a single image can evoke.

But it also reminded me of our hunt to locate the brutalist Signal Box at Birmingham New Street before we caught our train back from Gardener’s World Live last year - a building which was on MOH’s list of ‘buildings to see’.

And see it we did, but only from the outside - and it’s quite imposing.

The term brutalist is used for a reason isn’t it? But there’s also some fascinating shapes, angles and textures on this now retired Grade II listed building.

But up until the end of 2022 it continued to play its important part of Britain’s railway since it started operation in 1966 - the signallers inside were capable of directing up to 1200 trains a day. Clearly the 1960s technology was getting harder to maintain, and the manual operation for the power signal box for setting safe routes for trains no longer the preferred way of working with all of Birmingham New Street’s signalling equipment converted to digital operation as you’d expect.

I was fascinated by the remaining items left in the building though, just but not quite visible through the windows - I’m sure this is, and will be if left untouched, a real life sized version of a time capsule!

Brutalist architecture won’t be (and isn’t) to everyone’s taste, but I kind of admire it - its mix of reinforced concrete and concrete cladding definitely mark a moment of time.

I don’t know if my feelings are influenced by my love of visiting the brutalist library in South Norwood, or even by growing up near to Croydon which is also home to structures considered brutalist which to me were just the shopping centre, or the 50p or eggbox building!

Who knows.

Inside the fabric and haberdashery departments at Liberty

Having filled my cup as it were with the homewares in Liberty I headed further upstairs to the fabric and haberdashery departments, which for me could be a much more dangerous place for my purse! Initially I headed past the world famous prints and into the haberdashery - perhaps attracted by all the shiny things, who knew?

I couldn’t think of any good reason to buy any of the buttons or ribbons, but was totally in awe at the choice of buttons and almost instantly transported back to ‘The Button Shop’ in South Norwood High Street in the seventies, though to be clear I don’t think it could ever claim to be on a par with Liberty, but I do remember endless displays of all colours, sizes and shapes of button nonetheless.

I was intrigued by the artwork on the walls too - though again it’s not for the fainthearted at a mere £2,495 - my usual don’t look at the price routine scuppered by the label below. But it was very nice, though part of me wonders if this was the wrong department to hang this, as surely crafters are more likely to think to themselves ‘I could do that’ though admittedly it would also probably go onto a long list, and they’d probably never quite get around to it!

The haberdashery was laden with baskets of tempting Liberty fabric - some already made into pincushions, and others into equally pretty rolls and bundles. I was tempted, but out of the corner of my eye I saw the wall of quilting fabric and I had a new destination in mind.

Yes a wall of shelving of Liberty Quilting fabric, which was actually less densely populated with customers than most of the rest of the departments put together. And for Liberty the majority of this range wasn’t extortionate. Clearly I was tempted by the bright and pretty colours, but also I remembered that I was on a ‘grey fabric shopping’ general mission, and so I hunted out the greys, of which there were at least five different shades to choose from! I left with half a metre of a dark and a light grey to add to the stash for my extended Floral Fancy.

Having paid I left the haberdashery before any more damage could be done, and headed into the almost equally dangerous fabric department. Actually it’s probably less dangerous as I think if you’re spending this much on fabric you really need to have a plan. The Tana Lawn fabrics were easily ten pounds more than the quilting fabric I’d just purchased.

But they are ever so nice. And iconic. But also which one to choose?

For me I think I’m destined to have do something with the Ianthe range (pictured above) as every time I visit, or even look online I always find myself drawn to this design - but as yet, I’ve not bought any. I love the design and how elegant it is, but I’m still holding out until I have a plan as otherwise I don’t think I’d ever cut into it. Ever. Though actually that’s not such a bad plan either now is it?