The most beautiful store in the world

For some, the word Biba means nothing. For others it may be a word they simply recognise. For most, it was a way of life.

Biba was once described by the Sunday Times as ‘The most beautiful store in the world’ based in Kensington, West London. Barbara Hulanicki was, along with her husband, the founder, designer and commissioner of everything experienced within the Biba store. Not a single item entered the store without her approval, giving her the title of one the greatest British designers.

People in the 1960’s and 1970’s became infatuated with not just the clothes, but the store too. With an intense interior and everything so carefully thought out, it has to be the one place that given the chance, I would go to extreme lengths to visit. I cannot help feeling a sense of disappointment that the store, to me and many others, will only be witnessed through photographs.

As the store grew, it continued to move to larger stores finally ending up as a seven storey department store on Kensington High Street. The store contained everything Biba, from clothes to washing powder, dog food to stationary, all branded with the famous Biba logo.

Although being recently re-launched in House of Fraser, the original items tend to be found at, at least 3 times the original value, making the collection more of a desire than anything else, completely satisfying the title ‘vintage’ that most women adore. The clothing found in the Biba concessions are not like those that appeared in the original store, sadly ruining the Biba name and the younger generations that may not have heard of this brand, are being fed this false image of such beautiful clothing. The store itself was also a huge part of the Biba image which is not portrayed in House of Fraser.

A current project for university has asked us to come up with an idea and produce a 6 month campaign to make this idea come to life (obviously not literally). My idea is to re-launch Biba as a stand-alone store in its old location of Kensington, taking it out of House of Fraser. The research and planning is all too exciting and I can only pray that one day soon, someone, if not I, will go through with the idea and make it as beautiful and classic as it once was, as I strongly believe everyone with a love of fashion deserves that experience.

“Biba fulfilled the Rock and Roll promise to live fast, die young and leave a beautiful corpse”.