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.
Bu hikaye Country Life UK dergisinin April 03, 2024 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Giriş Yap
Bu hikaye Country Life UK dergisinin April 03, 2024 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Giriş Yap
Tales as old as time
By appointing writers-in-residence to landscape locations, the National Trust is hoping to spark in us a new engagement with our ancient surroundings, finds Richard Smyth
Do the active farmer test
Farming is a profession, not a lifestyle choice’ and, therefore, the Budget is unfair
Night Thoughts by Howard Hodgkin
Charlotte Mullins comments on Moght Thoughts
SOS: save our wild salmon
Jane Wheatley examines the dire situation facing the king of fish
Into the deep
Beneath the crystal-clear, alien world of water lie the great piscean survivors of the Ice Age. The Lake District is a fish-spotter's paradise, reports John Lewis-Stempel
It's alive!
Living, burping and bubbling fermented masses of flour, yeast and water that spawn countless loaves—Emma Hughes charts the rise and rise) of sourdough starters
There's orange gold in them thar fields
A kitchen staple that is easily taken for granted, the carrot is actually an incredibly tricky customer to cultivate that could reduce a grown man to tears, says Sarah Todd
True blues
I HAVE been planting English bluebells. They grow in their millions in the beechwoods that surround us—but not in our own garden. They are, however, a protected species. The law is clear and uncompromising: ‘It is illegal to dig up bluebells or their bulbs from the wild, or to trade or sell wild bluebell bulbs and seeds.’ I have, therefore, had to buy them from a respectable bulb-merchant.
Oh so hip
Stay the hand that itches to deadhead spent roses and you can enjoy their glittering fruits instead, writes John Hoyland
A best kept secret
Oft-forgotten Rutland, England's smallest county, is a 'Notswold' haven deserving of more attention, finds Nicola Venning