Customer Reviews

Biba: The Biba Experience

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I, too, was there in the late '60s, living and working in London with Biba just across the street beckoning daily. The text in this book is informative and interesting to anyone who has done retail or wants to know about its vagaries, and the photos are superb. But it is one person's collection, and for me, the visual essence and excitement of Biba is missing. Maybe it's the fact that there are no customers with their enthusiasm, or maybe I'm just missing the amazing array of color and design that hit you at each entry into Biba's, which the book does not really capture.

As someone who was "there"-- a young New Yorker working for the fashion press in the late '60s, frequent traveler to London (first stop: Biba), habitue of Bergdorf's Biba Boutique for Mahogany lipstick and lucky enough to have a British friend sending catalogues and clothes, I can honestly say reading Alywyn Turner's book on Biba was like living it again. He accurately and lovingly recreates the temper of the times and the uniqueness that was Biba. He also takes you way behind the scenes (where even Barbara Hulanicki did not go in her autobiography) as to the crash and burn in 1975. I did not "get" Big Biba either, and have always felt a little guilty about that. Nice to know I was not alone. Both a beautiful coffee table book of gorgeous photogaphs, ephemera and loving detail shots of the garments. I understand Barbara was grumbling about this book and did not cooperate with the author. I think she missed being part of a great tribute. Oh yes, I never kept any of my Biba clothes or stuff. You can imagine my regret!

This book is the ultimate (and perhaps only) true documentation of the entire Biba experience. Barbara Hulanicki was a true visionary who actually preceeded Ralph Lauren in creating a total lifestyle shopping environment. Her unwavering vision ultimately grew too big and needed outside financial backing to grow and even survive, leading to it's untimely demise.
Alwyn Turner's book is a treasure trove of images and text that transport all of us who were not lucky enough (or old enough) to see 'Big' Biba in person. Pari's world class collection is presented in lavish photographs that truly paint a vivid (yet muted) picture of the genius that is Barbara Hulanicki.

At long last, here is the definitive book on what is arguably the most important milestone in British fashion history. Alwyn W. Turner's indispensable 'The Biba Experience' is an dizzying journey back down the rabbit hole into Barbara Hulanicki's Art Nouveau/Art Deco-inspired wonderland of wide-eyed waifs in knee-high glitter boots. As super deluxe as its subject, this oversize volume offers a luscious feast of rare ephemera, as well as an exhaustive photographic catalogue of Pari's important collection of Biba originals. These visual gems embellish Turner's superlatively entertaining and informative text. The author successfully weaves his own exhaustive knowledge of the topic with poignant and often amusing accounts of those who actually experienced Biba firsthand during its dizzying heyday and tragic decline. At the same time, 'The Biba Experience' allows the reader to reassess Hulanicki's massive influence on fashion since the mid-1970s. In reviewing the gorgeously detailed photographs of Hulanicki's work here, it is evident that she did not possess the true couture genius of such contemporary designers as the mercurial Ossie Clark. But Biba encompassed so much more than fashion alone as the name of this book states quite accurately. Biba was a phenomenon-a fresh way of viewing the world that was equal parts nostalgic and futuristic. For its time, Biba was revolutionary in defining and satisfying a youthquake market that was frustrated with the childish frills and frippery that had been imposed upon them by conservative parents. Instead, Biba provided them with a darker-edged and openly sexual image, and one that was sometimes even dangerous in its Gothic undertones. 'The Biba Experience' cannot be more highly recommended. It will surely provide much lasting pleasure for the fashion student, couture historian, and fashionista alike.

At long last, here is the definitive book on what is arguably the most important milestone in British fashion history. Alwyn W. Turner's indispensable `The Biba Experience' is an dizzying journey back down the rabbit hole into Barbara Hulanicki's Art Nouveau/Art Deco-inspired wonderland of wide-eyed waifs in knee-high glitter boots. As super deluxe as its subject, this oversize volume offers a luscious feast of rare ephemera, as well as an exhaustive photographic catalogue of Pari's important collection of Biba originals. These visual gems embellish Turner's superlatively entertaining and informative text. The author successfully weaves his own exhaustive knowledge of the topic with poignant and often amusing accounts of those who actually experienced Biba firsthand during its dizzying heyday and tragic decline. At the same time, `The Biba Experience' allows the reader to reassess Hulanicki's massive influence on fashion since the mid-1970s. In reviewing the gorgeously detailed photographs of Hulanicki's work here, it is evident that she did not possess the true couture genius of such contemporary designers as the mercurial Ossie Clark. But Biba encompassed so much more than fashion alone as the name of this book states quite accurately. Biba was a phenomenon-a fresh way of viewing the world that was equal parts nostalgic and futuristic. For its time, Biba was revolutionary in defining and satisfying a youthquake market that was frustrated with the childish frills and frippery that had been imposed upon them by conservative parents. Instead, Biba provided them with a darker-edged and openly sexual image, and one that was sometimes even dangerous in its Gothic undertones. `The Biba Experience' cannot be more highly recommended. It will surely provide much lasting pleasure for the fashion student, couture historian, and fashionista alike.

Barbara Hulanicki's Biba was less a clothing brand or department store(though that would have been enough!), than an utter immersion in a lifestyle.

If you've been sadly disappointed by the other books about Biba for having far too few pictures of the stores or the cothing, your wishes have been granted.

The sad demise of such a marvellous line simply makes a well written and thorough record like this more precious.

Buy, enjoy, and wish one could go back in time.

Go to a place that only exists in your dreams. Even when Biba was a real store in London, it was like shopping in a mirage...It didn't last too long, and vanished in a puff of smoke, and left a life long memory.

I first read this book some time ago and have been devoted to Biba design ever since. This groovy fashion label started in the Swinging Sixties and went down in a blaze of glory in the Sinful Seventies. As the description on the back of the book aptly quotes "Biba fulfilled the Rock 'n' Roll promise to live fast, die young and leave a beautiful corpse" and oh what a cool business motto that is! As someone with an obsessive passion for the Art Nouveau and Art Deco styles, the 1960s and 70s and classic-rock in general I was taken with Barbara Hulanicki's retro design ethos. Ms Hulanicki and her business partner husband Stephen Fitz-Simon began the venture in London in 1964 as a small mail order business that swiftly grew until 1975, when it spectacularly collapsed, and this book tells the fascinating story of her ill-fated conception of a radical new way of shopping. The Biba Experience is a history of her vision from small and intimate boutique in Abingdon Road to a large 1930s department store in the old Derry & Toms Building in Kensington High Street. She lovingly renovated and restored this grand department store in a sympathetic manner while retaining and expanding on its original Art Deco features, it was called Big Biba. Ms Hulanicki firmly believed that the retail experience should be memorable for the buying public and appeal to a youthful crowd, as most shops then did not, and hence rock music would be piped through Art Deco styled loudspeakers while people could sit in the front windows watching the world go by... all the while having a cigarette and a coffee. In its heyday Biba played a major role in making London one of the hippest city in the world; models, rock and film stars could be seen shopping there and it had a powerful effect on contemporary British design. As the book explains the employees who worked there and the customers who shopped there remember it with great fondness, and even people who never experienced it firsthand are affected by its glamorous legend. Biba sold everything from its own label of clothes, hats and footwear to perfume, cosmetics and records. Big Biba also had a food hall that sold every type of exotic gourmet food imaginable, which supposedly was quite unusual for Britain of that era. There was a large space for dining on the top level of the Derry & Toms building named The Rainbow Room that was tastefully refurbished and where one would could eat in comfort while watching a live band, made infamous through a riotous drunken performance by the New York Dolls!

The second half of the book is taken up by a photographic catalogue of a unique private collection of Biba branded ephemera, clothing and shoes. Pari owns the largest collection in the world of trendy Biba clothing, footwear and memorabilia and in this book she finally puts them on display for all to see. The clothes are a mixture of then current fashions inspired by the Golden Age of Hollywood and to a lesser extent Fin de Siecle dress reform. Sure the designs, clothes and shoes have dated somewhat for they are very much of their era; but they're still rather funky, fun and beautiful nonetheless. I don't know if Biba could exist today in a climate where multinational corporations are creating a banal and insipid monoculture, for it was too nonconformist, but despite this it is interesting to note that Biba is "back in business" again after a hiatus of over thirty years... although I suspect it may be in name only. So if you're a tragic fashion victim like me or just have an abiding interest in the couture of this exciting era, and fashion history in general I'm sure that you will thoroughly enjoy this truly lavish coffee table book... and for those who knew Biba firsthand it will be a nostalgic trip down memory lane.

I found out about Biba while looking through a Kevin Aucoin book, he had done the make up of model Kate Moss in the style of a Biba girl. It was a beautiful picture and I just couldn't stop looking at it. The look was both ethreal gypsy and beauty. I had to find out what biba was, so I started doing research on the internet. I bought the Biba Experience exspecting it to capture a time and place. I wanted to see pictures of the people who shopped at Biba, pictures of people wearing Biba clothes I wanted to see the Biba look I wanted pictures from magazines and models and everyday people from that time. Sadly the Biba Experience is lacking in all that. While I found the information on the founder of Biba nice and infomative that same information can be found on the internet. The book had pictures of the store but no people in it, nothing that could really invoke that time and place . There were pictures of a collection of biba clothes worn by current day models that just wasn't very inspiring. I wouldn't recommend getting this book at all.