There was a time when fashion was fun. Great fun. A time before the conglomerates turned fashion into the enormous global business of now, and before the carousel of pre-collections, cruise collections, ready-to-wear collections, and micro-collections became an exhausting treadmill for designers. And nothing was more fun than Biba.
Named after the Polish designer Barbara Hulanicki’s little sister, Biba was one of the world’s most successful brands in the 60s and 70s. But nobody would ever consider it anything as dreary as a brand. Biba was a happening, a mood, a way of life. Damson lipstick and palm fronds, aubergine tights and leopard-print sofas, lacquered-wood counters and glowing globes of light—Biba was a supernova smashing into the dreary London of the time.
