Barbara Hulanicki was one of the people who changed the face of high street fashion in the Sixties. With her business partner and husband, Stephen Fitz-Simon (known simply as ‘Fitz’), she established the legendary Biba, selling trendy, affordable clothes via mail order and her shops in Kensington. The business eventually moved into the former Derry & Toms department store in Kensington High Street, which she transformed into a luxurious five-storey emporium, selling only branded Biba goods (including baked beans in extremely cool tins!). The building’s lavish art deco interior was topped by a roof garden restaurant, where live flamingoes roamed, and was a regular haunt for pop stars and celebrities.

‘Beyond Biba: A Portrait of Barbara Hulanicki’ is a new documentary about Hulanicki’s life, charting not only the rise and fall of Biba, but her childhood in Palestine and what she did after the closure of the Kensington High Street store and the death of Fitz.

I went to a recent screening of the film at the Gate cinema in Notting Hill and it certainly stirred up great teenage memories of travelling up to London from Surrey with the wages I’d earned from my Saturday waitressing job clutched in my hot little hand, eager to find some bargains and just to wander round the gorgeous store, soaking up its hothouse vibe.

The documentary is exactly what it says – an account of Hulanicki’s life that doesn’t ask too many searching questions and alas, doesn’t show too much of the legendary Kensington High Street store. According to the director Louis Price, who was in attendance for a post-screening Q&A with Hulanicki, he could find very little archive footage of the shop – and what there was was dark and gloomy. “It was supposed to be like that!” interrupted Hulanicki, now an interior designer living in Miami, to much laughter, adding that at the time, she and Fitz thought it was rather “naff” to take photographs of each other at work.

However, it’s good to see the work and influence of this surprisingly modest designer finally put on record. When asked why a recent exhibition of her illustrations (featured in the film) wasn’t better publicised, she shrugs, “I didn’t think anyone would be interested…” and when it’s suggested that she puts out a general request for former Biba acolytes to lend their treasured clothes in order to stage a long-overdue retrospective exhibition at the V&A Museum, she responds, with genuine wonder, “Do you think they would?” I, for one, am willing to drag out the yellow satin Cossack-style blouse which still hangs in the back of my wardrobe – V&A, take note!

You can watch a trailer for ‘Beyond Biba’ here:

Beyond Biba Trailer from November Films on Vimeo.

Did you shop at Biba? Share your memories here: