Biba and Beyond: Barbara in Brighton

1970s, barbara hulanicki, biba, brian duffy, brighton, british boutique movement, Inspirational Images, Studio

Biba models, c1973, photographed by Brian Duffy © Duffy Archives.

Excitement is building for the upcoming Biba and Beyond exhibition at Brighton Museum & Art Gallery, which I have already blogged about here, helped by Visit Brighton‘s fascinating short documentary video about Barbara Hulanicki.

The exhibition will be celebrating the Biba look and lifestyle, so much admired and coveted forty-odd years later, but also looking at Barbara’s career beyond her most famous creation. I’m certainly looking forward to more coverage of her illustration and interior design work.

Left:- Barbara Hulanicki in 1969 © Neil Libbert. Right:- Photograph Tessa Hallmann © Royal Pavilion & Museums

If any of you are visiting specifically for the exhibition, don’t forget that you are welcome to pop in to my new studio to say hello, browse the rail (yes, there’s Biba!) and have a cuppa. Just email me a bit in advance so I can make sure I’m there, armed with tea and biscuits…

Trouser Suit, c1971

Biba and Beyond: A question for Barbara

1960s, 1970s, barbara hulanicki, biba, brighton, british boutique movement

I was delighted to be asked to submit a question for Barbara Hulanicki, as part of Visit Brighton‘s series of promotional videos for the upcoming Biba exhibition at Brighton Museum in September. I decided to go out on a geeky limb and ask about the Biba ‘couture’ range which I blogged about in February of last year.

Thanks to Jo-ann Fortune at Visit Brighton and to Barbara herself. The exhibition opens on the 22nd of September and I am very much looking forward to seeing it, no doubt decked out in my Biba finery. I will, of course, be blogging about it once it has opened, so stay tuned!

Biba couture range (featured in the Observer Magazine, 19th January 1969)

Why I’ve been quiet…

brighton, Studio

Frocks! New rail! Excitement!

Or perhaps you’ve not noticed? Either way, my life has been a little busier lately (and a lot more complicated) because I have just taken on a studio/office space in Brighton. As you can tell, I haven’t yet decided which definition is more appropriate so it remains interchangeable. The plan is that I will move down to Hove properly in due course, but in the meantime – wouldn’t you know it? The perfect space made itself known and, though the timing wasn’t perfect, sometimes you just have to take things as they come to you.

We walked in, saw the amazing bay window and fireplace and bam! Knew instantly it was right.

I’m a sucker for a bay window…

It has been my dream for the past eight years to have a private workspace, separate from my home life and with a lockable door (while working from home has definite advantages, the constant need to clear everything away – or else have it in my face 24/7, gets rather tiresome in the long term) and this is the first time in my life I have been able to achieve it.

It is proving to be a slow process, the whole settling-in thing, made harder by the fact that I still have to spend a few days a week working in London, but it is nice to be able to sit and work in peace. And for Roxy to finally have a permanent home where people don’t take fright or make daft comments about her. Poor love.

Shoes!

The plan is also, eventually, for people to be able to come and visit and try things on in person. It is a frequent request, understandably, but I have always been uncomfortable with inviting customers into my all-too-messy home. So you will be able to book a time to come and visit, have a cup of tea and some non-twee cakes or biscuits, and try before you buy. Hurrah! It is still early days, but if you can allow for spartan surroundings (and are in the area) then you’re welcome to come and visit me…

I am also a sucker for a fireplace… Artistic hand placement (and photo) courtesy of Mr Brownwindsor.

A Peek at the Boutique: John Stephen and Lady Jane

1970s, british boutique movement, carnaby street, john stephen, lady jane

John Stephen boutique. Image © Len Fernandes.

Many, many thanks once again to the wonderful Len Fernandes, who provided us with a fantastic image of the Pussy Galore boutique on Carnaby Street (from 1971) back in April. He has now sent two further images: one of John Stephen’s many boutiques at number 33 and also of Harry Fox’s Lady Jane.

Again, these give us precious glimpses of the somewhat wilted locale; a few years before the rot set in completely, but a good few years after its mid-1960s heyday. Proof that it is always a good idea to photograph seemingly unimportant scenes and buildings, even if the importance may take a few decades to become apparent.

Please do not repost these images without full credit to Len, thank you.

Lady Jane of Carnaby Street. Image © Len Fernandes.

Guide to Feminine London

1970s, biba, Boston-151, british boutique movement, carnaby street, countdown, crowthers, Emmerton and Lambert, Foale and Tuffin, Illustrations, Janet Ibbotson, just looking, laura ashley, marrian mcdonnell, Michael Farrell, mr freedom, rowley and oram, stirling cooper, stop the shop, Suliman, thea porter, universal witness, yves saint laurent

Illustrated by Michael Farrell. Click to enlarge.

Oh I do love a good map. Especially a fantastically illustrated map of all my favourite shops in London in 1971. It is the nearest I will ever come to being able to walk around them. Sadness ensues…

Scanned from Vanity Fair, July 1971.

British Design Hero: Tommy Roberts

1960s, 1970s, british boutique movement, carnaby street, City Lights, glam rock, Inspirational Images, king's road, kleptomania, mr freedom, pop art, Tommy Roberts

Mr Freedom interior. Photograph: JON WEALLEANS

The lovely Paul Gorman very kindly sent me some sneaky peeky previews of his much-awaited new book about Tommy Roberts (Kleptomania, Mr Freedom, City Lights etc). From what I’ve seen and read so far, this is going to be quite a ‘must have’ book for anyone interested in Sixties and Seventies fashion – and specifically, the British Boutique scene in London at the time.

Cheeky and freaky, Mr Freedom clothes are amongst my very favourites of their kind. The bright, brash shapes, colours and logos have long since moved beyond pop-art irony and into the realms of the iconic themselves. This is the first, and I’m sure will remain the only, definitive look at the life of Roberts and his various other boutiques and projects … and I actually cannot wait to have a hard copy in my hands! I will give it a full review eventually, but until then…

Rock on Tommy, rock on…

You can pre-order Mr Freedom direct from Adelita for a mere £20.

Mr Freedom hotpants, 1970. Photo: Stephen Markeson (The Sun/NI Syndication)

Derek Morton suit for City Lights, 1973. Photographed by David Parkinson

Mensday: About a lucky man who made the grade…

1960s, anita pallenberg, brian jones, carnaby street, Mensday, menswear, Michael Cooper, suki potier, Tara Browne, The Beatles, the rolling stones, Vogue

The Hon. Tara Browne in a maroon silk suit chosen by his wife, Nicky, left. By Major Hayward. Gold shirt, Turnbull & Asser

Both Tara Browne and Brian Jones were at the height of their fame, fortune and follicular glory here. Neither would see the Seventies. Indeed, Browne wouldn’t even see out the year this feature hails from. Quite extraordinary to see them together in the same spread from Men In Vogue, November 1966. They even managed to date the same woman (Suki Potier was the passenger in Browne’s Lotus Elan when he died, and would later be comforted by Jones – dating him, on-and-off, until his death in 1969.)

Photographs by Michael Cooper.

Brian Jones, a Rolling Stone in a double-breasted black suit, striped red and white, chosen by Anita Pallenberg, above. Bright pink shirt, scarlet handkerchief and tie. All bought in New York. Black and white shoes found in Carnaby Street.

As an aside, I was amazed to read, for the first time, that there are actually people in the world who believe that Tara Browne underwent extensive plastic surgery to ‘become’ a replacement Paul McCartney. Because McCartney actually died in a motorbike accident in Liverpool [just before Browne faked his own death], dontchaknow? I mean no offence to a beloved Beatle, but why on earth would anyone bother? Nobody bothered doing that with any other dead rock star at the time.

I’m quite the arch timewaster myself, but even my mind boggles at the years people devote to such patently ludicrous things.

Mensday: Double A-side

1960s, carnaby street, I was Lord Kitchener's Valet, john stephen, Topper, Vintage Adverts

Scanned from Photoplay, April 1967

Carnaby Male catalogue advert and ‘The Boys Go Antique’ clipping both scanned from the same issue of Photoplay, April 1967.

Scanned from Photoplay, April 1967

A Peek at the Boutique: Pussy Galore

1970s, british boutique movement, carnaby street, pussy galore

Image is © Len Fernandes.

One of the best things about my job is that people often get in contact with me in relation to the kinds of things I post about. I sometimes find this a bit overwhelming because the many aspects of my so-called vintage life can consume large chunks of my time, leaving me very little room for following up on everything. The ‘to do’ list in my inbox is frightening.

But, thankfully, occasionally something and somebody will come along which is simple and important enough for me to deal with immediately. And when I received this picture from the lovely Len Fernandes of Hawaii, I knew I had to quickly and cheekily request to post it on my blog.

I have blathered on about Pussy Galore before, indeed my beloved Pussy Galore tablecloth dress was exhibited at the V&A in 2006, but I don’t have much concrete information on its longevity and had no idea what the shop frontage was like. It feels like Carnaby Street must have been photographed daily from 1964-1974, but the reality is that we only see the narrowest of snapshots in each snippet of film or each batch of photographs.

So I was delighted to see this photograph of the shop front in 1971. Delighted and a little sad, for it looks rather ‘on its uppers’ even then. As with so many boutiques that popped up there in the boom times, and flourished in the glare of the media hype, by 1971 it was starting to look less shiny, less innovative. Carnaby Street was a pastiche, a fiction… not the centre of the fashion universe. Everyone had decamped to the King’s Road or Kensington High Street.

Still, it is an amazing piece of history which tells you something of the deterioration, as opposed to the continuous glorification, of Carnaby Street.

Please also note the brilliant positioning which enables us to see the Carnaby Street sign and ‘Kids in Gear’ in the reflection. Thank you so much Len!

Bagged!

1970s, aristos, art of bags, biba, british boutique movement, chelsea girl, countdown, crowthers, irvine sellars, jean varon, john bates, just looking, king's road, laura ashley, mr freedom, ravel, stop the shop, take 6

I couldn’t resist following ‘Tagged!’ with ‘Bagged!’. The art of the carrier bag seems even less appreciated than the art of the hang tag, despite its importance in the history of advertising and consumerism.

On Simon Hendy’s incredible website “My Dad’s Photos“, Simon has scanned a mountain of original photos that his father took across six years of fashionable (and not so fashionable) people on the King’s Road in the late Sixties and early Seventies. It is truly a delight to sift your way through them. They are a true time capsule of ‘real’ people wearing ‘real’ clothes in a period where photo opportunities were frequently engineered and crafted (as brilliant as Frank Habicht’s ‘In The Sixties’ is, it’s a very well-crafted form of ‘candid’ photography). I will definitely post about them again, not least because I recognise so many bits of clothing from designers I love.

However, today’s post is about the carrier bag. For, as I was sifting through and starting to get a bit dizzy with the amazingness of it all, I started to notice the bags people were carrying. Biba, Aristos, Stop the Shop, Crowthers… These are truly ephemeral items. How many people bother to keep a plastic bag? You might, if you were lucky, have wrapped something up in one and plonked it in your loft for the past forty years. But these examples are few and far between. The iconic design of the original Biba bags has ensured that they are the most regularly found on eBay, but few of any other kind have slipped through the net.

I did, however, find a ‘Jean Varon’ bag on eBay very recently, which has now taken its place in my collection of weird and wonderful ephemera.

Simon has kindly allowed me to link to his photos from my blog. I know it’s hard to keep such things under control in this age of tumblr etc, but I would appreciate if you would also ask him if you would like to repost his images somewhere else. He has spent many hours scanning these photos, photos which (unlike magazine scans) would not be available otherwise – from anyone else. Thank you!