LOOK again. Beyond the black and pink ostrich feathers, massed in glass vases, are chocolate-coloured lipsticks, reflected in 1,000 mirrors. There are baked beans in customised cans and biscuits in patterned paper bags and the walls are papered with leopard prints. Potted palms thrust arching stems towards the light, the scent of Madonna lilies merges with the body odour and bubblegum of the communal changing areas. Is the floor pink marble? If you want false eyelashes, the owner has ordered 25,000 pairs. There are black nappies, too, scarcely visible in the carefully dim lighting, glossy black coffee cups and, draped over bentwood stands, strings and strings of beads alongside feather boas in the dusty, watercolour hues of old women’s knickers. On a sofa in the window, benign beyond the fray, a priest is eating a sandwich for lunch. ‘It isn’t just selling dresses, it’s a whole way of life,’ explains the creative force behind this tantalising melange.
For a gorgeous decade, beginning in 1964, clothing and lifestyle brand Biba, now the subject of an exhibition at the Fashion and Textile Museum, London SE1, revolutionised affordable shopping in the capital. ‘I wanted to do something different, to make beautiful clothes,’ founder Barbara Hulanicki has explained. And so she did, her distinctive vision shaped by her own perennial desire to rebel, the pale faces and dark lips of the pre-Raphaelite muses that she had admired in galleries, Audrey Hepburn dressed by Givenchy and the glamorous neverland of interwar Hollywood.
Denne historien er fra April 03, 2024-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra April 03, 2024-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
Happiness in small things
Putting life into perspective and forces of nature in farming
Colour vision
In an eye-baffling arrangement of geometric shapes, a sinister-looking clown and a little girl, Test Card F is one of television’s most enduring images, says Rob Crossan
'Without fever there is no creation'
Three of the top 10 operas performed worldwide are by the emotionally volatile Italian composer Giacomo Puccini, who died a century ago. Henrietta Bredin explains how his colourful life influenced his melodramatic plot lines
The colour revolution
Toxic, dull or fast-fading pigments had long made it tricky for artists to paint verdant scenes, but the 19th century ushered in a viridescent explosion of waterlili
Bullace for you
The distinction between plums, damsons and bullaces is sweetly subtle, boiling down to flavour and aesthetics, but don’t eat the stones, warns John Wright
Lights, camera, action!
Three remarkable country houses, two of which have links to the film industry, the other the setting for a top-class croquet tournament, are anything but ordinary
I was on fire for you, where did you go?
In Iceland, a land with no monks or monkeys, our correspondent attempts to master the art of fishing light’ for Salmo salar, by stroking the creases and dimples of the Midfjardara river like the features of a loved one
Bravery bevond belief
A teenager on his gap year who saved a boy and his father from being savaged by a crocodile is one of a host of heroic acts celebrated in a book to mark the 250th anniversary of the Royal Humane Society, says its author Rupert Uloth
Let's get to the bottom of this
Discovering a well on your property can be viewed as a blessing or a curse, but all's well that ends well, says Deborah Nicholls-Lee, as she examines the benefits of a personal water supply
Sing on, sweet bird
An essential component of our emotional relationship with the landscape, the mellifluous song of a thrush shapes the very foundation of human happiness, notes Mark Cocker, as he takes a closer look at this diverse family of birds