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As a young designer in 1973-1974 from Brighton I knew that the one place I would like to see my jewellery sold was at Biba's.
I went up to the shop and asked if i could speak to the buyer and they immediately ushered me upstairs and there was Barbara Hulanicki.
And that initated a relationship which last around two years i suppse of selling our jewelery to Biba's
And just the association of selling to Biba's was enough to make our work very popular.
So it was hugely influential on our success and ability to stay making jewellery for the next ten or so years.
The thing I remember most about Biba was in Abbingdon road, hearing about it on the grape vine and then going along to have a little look.
And I thought this isn't a shop! I went in and it was all dark, like going into a night club and there were these amazing clothes hanging around.
And I thought 'Whoa!' and then it started to fill up with people and you could hardly see the clothes.
I went back a next time and bought a suit. My suit is black and tan, herring bone. It's more like a matinee jacket but very short.
And the skirt was atleast an inch and a half shorter than the the jacket so i was able to wear a black belt with a silver buckle on it.
It all started back in early 1966, I was in need of a job and I happen to look in the Evening Standard and my eye fell upon an advertisement for a van driver.
Anyway I rang the number up and was invited to come along. I turned up at this rather scruffy looking corner shop
Which was full of gorgeous girls, both shop girls and customers. I was ushered in and went upstairs and was presented to the owner of the business, who was Fitz.
I said first of all, that i was not planning to stay for very long. I had a particular project which was to do a tour out in Ethiopia.
I explained this to Fitz and he said 'Well how long do you think you'll work for?' and I said 'About a year' and he said 'Yes fine I'll take you on.'
And that's how I started off at Biba.
I've got a few things that have survived from the 60's. I've got three catalogues from 1969 and 1970.
One of which I've been told is worth a considerable amount of money because the photographs were shot by Helmut Newton.
And it was out of that catalogue that I bought my most treasured Biba item. A little narrow unlined jacket in needle cord with covered buttons
And an inset belt which was very much the fashion in the late 60's. I used to get a pound of a week clothing allowance
And this jacket was 4 pounds and 10 shillings which my grandmother said was a terrible waste of money but I bought this jacket by post.
It arrived on Friday the 11th of July 1969 and that evening i went to a concert at Leed's town hall to hear Thunderclap Newman.
And I wore my little Biba jacket and i was quite clearly the coolest girl in Leed's that night!
I remember working there in the closing down sale so that was exciting. It was always very dark in there.
Everything was painted dark brown so it was like going into a huge cave and it was like being in a nightclub because the music was so loud, and it was dark.
The Biba object I still own and is in my living room is the fox from the Roof Gardens and during the closing down sale I bought the fox.
And it's still in my living room to this day and I absolutely love it. They had foxes and rabbits and small deer all in the Roof Garden.
They were very realistic and they sold them off in the closing down sale so I've got the fox which is nearly forty years old now.
Walking into the exhibition just takes you back to that time as if you never left it and it was such a special place to be.
I had a black suit it had a long skirt that came in to the knees and then flipped out like a sort of fish but it was the jacket that was absolutely gorgeous.
And it was up to the neck, peplum waist, little tight sleeves that were puffed at the shoulders.
Tight all the way down the arm, and lots of little tiny buttons all the way down.
There's a photo of my daughter as a nine month old sitting in this absolutely fabulous dress which was covered in lady birds.
The other photo is of her wedding, she eloped to Florence and she took the outfit and got married in it so she had something of mine.
My favourite Biba object were always their boots, I'm wearing a pair today. They are suede and very long in the leg with a lovely heel on them.
They also made you look very, very tall even if you weren't. And with a short skirt they worked perfectly and you look like a 10 foot 3 model or something!
It just made you walk better, it made you look fantastic. It really did. Biba itself was wonderful as I left work at 2 o'clock in the afternoon.
And i used to work shifts, it would stay open until 8pm. So you could spend the entire afternoon buying something If you took your boyfriend with you
He was more than happy to go shopping with you, not like these days, and he could sit on the little bench seat in the window and look at all the ladies
While you went off and changed and you could be hours and hours but it didn't matter one bit but he was perfectly happy!
Biba for me was just an amazing experience going to this beautiful building which was really, really atmospheric and you could just sit around and enjoy yourself.
You could go to the Rainbow Room restaurant. It was a really stylish restaurant but really cheap food! You could pretty much spend the whole day there.
And go and sit up on the roof gardens which were absolutely beautiful, I remember going in there and there was this gorgeous big bed with a canopy
and leopard skin and everything and just lying on there with my girlfriend and nobody bothered us at all.
There was another place, a big alcove full of cushions and I went there with my girlfriend at the time and we were just having a pillow fight in there.
It was just this really magical place.
When I was a fashion student in the late 60's, early 70's we actually used to make pilgrimages, hitch-hiking down from Manchester in order to visit Biba.
It was so inspiring, it inspired a whole generation. We were totally inspired and I want to put her forward for a fashion award!
Once upon a time, I had a beautiful Biba blouse in midnight navy with one of her white spotty prints on it. it had a high neck, a bow at the front.
I took it with me to South Africa and wore it to a party with dark inidgo jeans. I went to bed that night and put it by the bedside
Then when I woke up, it had disappeared. My Biba blouse was stolen!
My Biba outfit which I've had for over forty years now, bought by my then-boyfriend who is now my husband.
And that was bought in the high street Kensington store. We just went in there one day and I tried it on and he bought it for me.
And he was an art student at the time so he obviously didn't have that much money. I've kept it all these years because he bought it for me and we're still together.
My most treasured memory is going up to London on the train with my friends, we'd saved up our pocket money and we were going up there to buy something.
And we always found something that we really liked. And going into the shop was like entering a different world, it was like an Aladdin's cave!
With all these bentwood hat stands with feather boas on and the clothes were draped over them. You could just go in there and buy a whole outfit and come home.
It was just a great day out.
Fitz and Barbara ran Biba very much as a team, absolutely perfect together. Because Barbara had all the creativity and the flair.
Fitz was a very tough business man, and then they had Veethold. And they were always on set as it were.
Veethold always reminded me of little Lord Fauntleroy. He always had velvet knickerbockers, hence the children's stuff.
It's very rare for such a huge venture to be family affair and not not only were they a very close family but we who worked for Biba were also a close family.
Including Mary who was on the reception, who was Freddie Mercury's number one love; anyway but all of us.
I remember seeing this particular dress on the cover of the honey magazine, it must of been in the late 60's, early 70's.
I decided I wanted that dress, so I saved my pennies, caught the train up to London and went to the Kensington High Street store.
And there it was, hanging on one of the clothng hooks. I was lucky, I grabbed the dress which was too small for me so I had to diet to wear it
But I did and I can remember wearing the dress out, I think the first evening and my male friends said how much they liked it so I thought that's good deal!
When I was expecting my daughter, it was 1970 and I went to the Biba shop and of course I was vastly pregnant so what could I buy?!
I bought the beautiful suede boots, and they were exquisite purple. I have still got my Biba bronze satin trousers.
I've looked in the exhibition and there are pink ones and the thing you remember most of all was there was a seam around the bottom
A semi-circular seam. I've never seen trousers like that before or since.
All i wanted to do was escape really, and I applied to work for the bbc and in those days it was very easy.
I got a job and I lived in Shepherd's Bush in a shared flat and it was a very exciting time to be in London.
And then when the Biba store was on my doorstep i just thought it doesn't get any better than this really.
So I've still got my Biba dress, which i bought in the Kensington high street store and it was for a very specific purpose.
It was going to be my going away dress, after I got married and this was in 1972 when i was twenty so I was very young.
And I remember it being incrediably hot and the dress was short sleeved and the low neck was just perfect.
Well I still wish now that I'd bought the Biba cans of baked beans that had the dancing girls on, and I'm so sad now that I didn't buy any of those.
But in terms of things to wear I still have a rust coloured velour dress, full length with very wide sleeves and then going into a cuff with a covered button.
It's on a yoke and it sort of swings. I have some rust coloured boots that would go underneath it and it's just a lovely outfit.
But I loved absolutely everything I bought from there.
My memory of Biba was, I don't know how I got the catalogue I think I must have seen it advertised in a girl's magazine.
I ordered the catalogue and I just loved all the pictures and everything. And i had saved up some money to buy the dresses which was
Like a half dress, half coat. I sent it off, and I was really looking forward to receiving it then I had a letter back saying
Unfortunately they had closed their mail order business. And I never really got my Biba dress that I was hoping for.
Well when I was growing up I always wished I could afford something by Barbara Hulanicki and something from Biba but i didn't get much pocket money.
I was still at school, Biba came and went. And then recently I started helping at Brighton Museum in the costume and textile department with Martin.
I help get the Biba exhibition ready and I came to opening night and because we hadn't managed to find one of Barbara's original pink gingham dresses
I made one and wore it to the opening night and met Barbara and i also met Felicity Green who actually comissioned Barbara
To design the dress for mail order in a newspaper, and it was on sale for 1 pound 2 shillings and 6 pence.
And they sold 17.5 thousand of them of that one dress which I think was probably the beginning of Barbara's big career.
I was one of three sisters and my older sister was considerably older so of course she was at work whilst me and my younger sister
Were still at school but we did actually make it up to Biba's and we were young teenagers and of course we were awe struck because of it was a different world.
And it was lovely, the clothes were so flattering and although I had to press my bust into them because they weren't made for large chested ladies.
They were made for very slender girls, and I think even now some of the young girls have trouble getting in to them.
But we were very slim then so we fitted into them despite how much I bulged out but they were always wonderful clothes to wear.
And I always felt very glamorous so it's fun to show them off again.
Well I think the first memory of Biba was mum telling us that we could either have one Biba outfit or several from C&A's.
And we chose to have the one from Biba's. We went up to a little shop in Church street for that and it was quite an experience.
As things progressed, the shop moved around the corner and was larger. I can remember buying the satin stripy outfit.
I think it's my iconic Biba, it's the one I've kept and loved. I think it was just a great experience going up to the Biba shops.
And seeing the leopard print in home furnishing, that's been something that's stayed in my life forever.
It must have been the first time I went to Biba, about 1970-71, my friend Lizzy was getting married and she took me to Biba's.
A little boutique in Kensington, to choose her bridal dress and my bridesmaid dress.
We had matching dresses; she had ivory and I had navy, a deep royal blue. It had great big sleeves that puffed up and it was down to the ground.
It was all satin, it was fantastic trying them on behind the screens, absolute chaos. So many people, so many beautiful clothes.
It was the first time I had been there, and they were 10 pound each.
When I was at school the Biba catalogue came out and I saved up all my Saturday job money and bought a *** coat for 13 pounds.
And we used to live in Lowestoft and we swished around town being Biba girls in our doctor who scarves and our *** coats and skirts up to our bottoms.
And nobody else had them and we were just the bees knees and it was wonderful