The Ethereal Dream That Was Biba
For a short time in the 70s, fashion visionary Barbara Hulanicki and her husband, Fitz, reimagined the way we saw the world.
Mark Raynes Roberts
“Barbara Hulanicki changed the English fashion scene single-handedly.” Twiggy
For a brief time during the early 1970s, the department store, Biba, on Kensington High Street was the second most popular tourist attraction in London - after the Tower of London.
I realize now just how fortunate I was to experience Biba at its zenith. My sister and I spent our summers with my Uncle and Aunt in Kensington during our early teenage years, so we got to enjoy the fantastical romantic retro life stylings of Biba first-hand.
Do you hold onto vivid unimportant memories from your childhood? I do.
Why on earth would I still remember the song ‘Love’s Theme’ by Barry White’s Love Unlimited Orchestra, that was playing as I exited the lift, (elevator) in Biba in 1973 when I was just 12? But I do.
The sexiness of Biba was palpable at the time even for a young teenager from the home counties. I remember entering the Rainbow Room on the 5th floor, a beautiful Art Deco copy of the original Rainbow Room in the Rockefeller Centre in New York. Its tiered illuminated multi-coloured ceiling, leopard-print furnishings and faceted mirrors oozing theatre, excitement and yes sex!
Designer Barbara Hulanicki celebrating the 60th Anniversary retrospective of Biba recently held at the Fashion and Textile Museum, in London in March 2024.
Biba was the vision of designer Barbara Hulanicki and her husband, Stephen Fitz-Simon, (known simply as Fitz) who had begun their fashion brand humbly as a mail order business based upon a simple gingham dress inspired by one worn by Brigit Bardot in 1963. Surprised by its immediate success, they moved into their first boutique at 87 Abingdon Road in 1964.
Little did they know that over the next ten years, they would move two more times, with Biba hitting the heights of success like a meteor. Their elegant Biba brand name (named after Barbara’s younger sister Biruta) leading the UK fashion world and designed to be affordable and accessible to everyone.
In 1966, they moved from Abingdon Road to larger premises at Kensington Church Street. However, it was in 1973 that Barbara and Fitz truly hit their stride, moving into the old Derry & Toms department store location. This was a place where my grandmother would go for afternoon high tea in the famous Rooftop Gardens, a magical Marrakesh-styled oasis with mosaic ponds and fountains, live flamingos and even penguins. By 1973, Derry & Toms had sadly become a lack luster emporium for the elderly, so it was inevitable that change was coming - and did it ever.
Barbara Hulanicki stepping out of her first Biba Boutique located at 87 Abingdon Road, (in 1964) Kensington before moving to Kensington Church Street (in 1966) and then finally to Kensington High Street (in 1973), taking over the large department store that was formerly Derry & Toms. My sister’s bedroom was adorned with the poster above of Twiggy, the face of Biba.