An exhibition about one of the biggest brands of the 1960s and 70s fashion world opens with a simple dress made from the sort of fabric that used to adorn cheap cafe tables. But that dress was to start the revolution that turned Biba from a small mail-order catalogue into the occupiers of a huge department store that, at one point, was one of London’s biggest tourist attractions.
The Biba exhibition at Bermondsey’s Fashion and Textile Museum tries to understand what made Biba so desirable to the young people who clamoured for their clothes and the lifestyle they hinted at.
As a 50s-something guy, it’s almost a pleasure to be in an exhibition where I am at the younger end of the visitor profile, as the space is filled with ladies of a certain age who certainly danced away their youthful nights in Biba dresses.
One of the reasons the achingly fashionable brand was so popular was its affordability.
As one of the display boards explains, the difficulty of buying large quantities of fabrics resulted in very short runs of designs, so they constantly changed their displays while keeping prices low enough for the aspiring young person to afford to pick something up on a visit.
While the firm made its first and later success as a mail order firm, it’s probably most famous for the Kensington High Street emporium, where the store was more of an experience, harking back a bit to the glory days of the department store when owners laid on grand experiences to lure in customers.
The exhibition starts with what made Biba famous: the clothes – a fashion show of sorts filling the museum’s ground floor showing off the different collections over the years – from the little black dress to the very vibrant and achingly 1960s fashion fabrics.
Later on, the exhibition looks at the rest of Biba — the emporium that sold everything you could imagine to live the total Biba lifestyle. Although I’d like to think that today, we’d frown on shops selling tins of shark fin, bird’s nest or real turtle soup.
In fact, their cosmetics range generated the best sales and outlived the rest of the company’s closure. In that way, Biba was an early proponent of the modern fashion empire — using fashion to get the headlines but selling fragrances to pay the bills.
The exhibition manages though to elicit some of the allure of a 1970s firm that somehow looked 1930s in its branding, even if the products they sold were bang up to date. A particuarly nice touch is the entrance corridor into the exhibition, lined with replicas of Biba’s 1973 Lady Lamps — and you can see an original in the exhibition as well.
As an exhibition, it’s both a display of the clothes they sold, but also a reminder of a time when one store in London exemplified what the future was trying to be.
The exhibition, The Biba Story, 1964-1975 is at the Fashion and Textile Museum until 8th September 2024. It’s strongly recommended that you book tickets in advance as they are often sold out by the time you turn up at the door.
The museum is open Tuesday to Saturday – closed on Sunday (except the last day) and Monday.
