Biba, the creation of Barbara Hulanicki, was the first high street brand experience – opened in Kensington in 1973. Biba was glitz, glamour, arrogant but with a sense of humour & held every retail world record. The Biba Archive is now housed in the V&A Museum, along with all of our drawings.
Biba – from the Food Hall to the Roof Gardens was designed by Whitmore-Thomas – the interiors, the attendant graphics & packaging for all seven floors of own-brand retail magic. The 28000 sq ft marble ground floor sold fashion accessories – and all own-brand.
Biba – ‘The most beautiful store in the world’ – The Sunday Times 1975
The national press was blitzed with small Biba logo teaser ads a week prior to opening. Opening day, 10 September 1973, was chaos – but only chaos, not complete bloody mayhem, perhaps due to the print-run of 300,000 newspapers that were handed out to customers as store guides; a subliminal persuader to discourage the use of the vintage lifts, and to direct people to the magnificent stairways, where there was a billion decibels of the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ to waft one heavenward.
Originally designed in 1968 as an in-store promotional showcard. It won the British Council of Design poster award, despite one judge thinking it was 'far too visual'. Whatever. Photographer; Sarah Moon. Model; Ingrid Boulting. Designer; me.
Derry & Toms Building; 1934, designed by architect Bernard George, it is a fabulous example of French Modernism on Kensington High Street, with it’s famous roof garden & seven floors of fantastic thirties design detail. Christmas 1971 it was bought for Biba, Barbara’s dream present.
The Biba Newspaper: Graphic design & typography: Chris Angell and Mick Partlett; illustration: Kasia Charko.
The Opening Ads; The large composite ads appeared on the day itself; they obviously worked – the place was heaving.
One of the twenty-four loudspeakers on the ground floor, blasting Roxy & David all day, the speaker 'cosy' was based on a concept of Wurlitzer organ meets the RockOla juke box. Photo by Tim White
The Boots & Shoes carpet pattern was based on an old remnant I found in a Kilburn wood-yard in 1968 and kept, believing it would come in handy one day. Photo by Tim Street-Porter
The Hollywood-Egyptain communal changing rooms, the Amun-Ra mirrored 'till cosies' covered the extremely large & ugly computer cash-registers. Photo by Tim White
One of a matched mirror-image pair of curved units, in peach and silver mirror, this one being designed for tights & stockings. Spot the one upside down tights pack. Crap art direction – I do apologise. Photo by Tim White
One of the four tester ends of the black-glass & pink-mirror cruciform cosmetic unit; in the early mornings these areas were a mass of girls applying their make-up on their way to the Kensington High Street tube station. Photo by Tim White
The iconic shot of the pop-art inspired Food Hall in the basement; the tinned food area. From Warhol's Condensed Soup to Whitmor'’s Frankfurters & Thomas's Baked Beans (our sign-off for the store), I put Pop Art back onto the supermarket wall, from whence it came. Photo by Tim Street-Porter
Some of our range of 1500 food packs, all own brand, from Biba Baked Beans to Biba Camembert – including Biba Washing Powder, I'm not sure that black women on their knees scrubbing the laundry is entirely PC, but no one ever complained, I'm delighted to say. Photo by Tim White
The centre piece to the First Floor, the Biba floor, girls' fashion & accessories; an 85 foot long art-nouveau raised bed platform, selling lingerie & night-wear in open-fronted wardrobes, all tassels, glass beaded curtains, & arum lilies. Photo by Tim White
The kids’ café on the second floor; part of a whole kids’ village including a castle, a general store & saloon. Our toadstool table & seat concept has been stolen a million times. Photo by Tim White
Othello, Barbara's Great Dane, was inspiration for the dog food display, but we did give him a giant figleaf, to protect his modesty. Photo by Tim Street-Porter
The Rainbow Room; originally designed in 1933 by Marcel Hennequet. The art deco classic was revamped, relamped and possibly even improved 40 years later. Transformed it from a banqueting facility to an open-all-day 750-seater restaurant. By night the cabaret venue, much admired by the glitterati of London frequented by Roxy, Bowie, Mick and Adam. Photo by Tim Street-Porter
On the day before opening, John Bishop was commissioned by 19 magazine to photograph an extensive fashion spread using the store as a backdrop for the models, which Barbara art-directed. This particular glamorous image was shot in the Rainbow Room, the fifth floor restaurant & bar.
The Biba logos; Each floor, and in some cases each area of each floor had its own identity, and thus its own logo, typeface, letterhead, swing-ticket, letterhead and gift voucher. Details, details, details, the devil’s in the detail. l-r: Men's Floor, Junior Rainbow, Ground Floor, Rainbow Room, Mistress Room, Food Hall, Pregnant Mums, Health Cosmetics, Kids, Roof Garden, Junior Rainbow (linear), Lolita, Men's Cosmetics, HouseholdFloor. Babies.
The Tee-Shirt unit; every season Barbara Hulanicki designed roughly 700 permutations of T-shirt hence the enormous size of this pigeonholed unit, however mathematically we never had enough; exactly how the shop girls worked the system I'll never know. Photo by Tim White