Fashion Icons: BIBA Girl

First day of Autumn – a very appropriate date for the mood of Biba fashion. Still, this is the last post in my fashion icon series. You can read all of them here.

I really hope you enjoyed this collage-journey throughout (mostly) 1960s fashion icons. Who knows, this might not be my last series regarding history of fashion, I do have a cunning idea on my mind, but about that some other time. What do you think? And let me know which one was your favourite fashion icon from this series. Do share your opinions. Although I enjoyed writing about them all, my personal tastes lean towards styles of Marianne Faithfull, Brigitte Bardot, Edie Sedgwick and Anna Karina.

This photo is the essence of Biba look (apart from the nudeness) -luscious richly textured pillows in jewel colours of Pre-Raphaelite paintings, fabrics from the East, velvet, heavy perfumes, dark lipsticks, orchids and roses, animal prints – leopard and tiger, hint of 1930s glamour, doll-like make up, black lace, rosy cheeks and floral print evoking Victorian wallpapers – that’s Biba; more than fashion, it is the aesthetic, the mood, the spirit…

And now a few facts. ‘Biba‘ label was started by Barbara Hulanicki, a fashion designer and illustrator born in Warsaw in 1936, who moved to England in 1948 and later studied at Brighton School of Art. The first Biba boutique opened in Abingdon Road, Kensington in September 1964, and its first hit was a brown pinstripe dress. Despite its popularity in times of Swinging London, Biba style couldn’t have been more different to the classic, tailored and structured Mod look worn by Twiggy and The Beatles fans. Barbara’s designs were made specifically for young people, girls in their late teens and early twenties, because, in a typical sixties spirit, she wanted to draw a line between the outfits those girls would wear and the outfits their mothers would.

Likewise, her store was a place for ‘groovy’ individuals, with loud music and lavishing decadent interior in a boudoir-meets-Art Nouveau-and-Art Deco style. When designing, Barbara drew inspiration from romantic Victorian and Edwardian fashions, as well as the glamour of the 1920s and 30s, particularly when it came to make up, inspiration for which was found in faces of film stars such as Greta Garbo, Louise Brooks, Jean Harlow and Theda Bara. Colours she used were very Autumnal, very much in the Count Dracula-graveyard tea party-Miss Havisham-Ophelia-funeral kind of mood – browns, shiny purples, midnight blues, plum, orchid, mahogany, copper, tobacco, camel, camelia pink, red, amethyst, jade… Dresses themselves were very uncomfortable, made from itchy materials and designed in a way it often made it hard to move your arms! But the sixties gals didn’t really care, as long as they looked like Victorian dolls.

Young girls working there were given a new Biba dress every week, along with their regular pay check, so you can only imagine how cool it must have been working there. Hulanicki described her customers as ‘postwar babies who had been deprived of nourishing protein in childhood and grew up into beautiful skinny people: a designer’s dream. It didn’t take much for them to look outstanding.‘ Biba’s models, such as Maddie Smith and Ingrid Boulting, followed a similar pattern. They were all skinny chicks with doll-like faces; soft round eyes, chubby cheeks, thin eyebrows and beautifully shaped full lips. And the best thing is that Barbara Hulanicki dressed in the same style she created, which I think shows just how passionately she loved the whole aesthetic. She lived her designs, and isn’t that the best advertisement?

This is the end, dear reader, the end….

Fashion Icons: Marianne Faithfull

Marianne Faithfull is one of my favourite fashion icons from this series. Her sixties-psychedelia-rock ‘n’ roll look was the first one I tried to emulate when I first got interested in the 1960s fashion and culture. So, a typical Marianne look would include a suede skirt, shirt, thin scarf and boots, or a floral print mini dress with boots. As you’ll see from my collages, she wore lots of different looks, from sequin dresses for her performances, to bell bottom trousers, nun-style black dresses with white collars, paisley shirts, dresses with bishop sleeves etc.

I haven’t read her autobiography yet, but I do like her music, from the simple and innocent mid sixties tunes such as ‘Come and Stay With Me‘ and ‘As Tears Go By’, to her ‘songs of experience’, sung in a husky voice, such as ‘Sister Morphine’ and ‘Working Class Hero’.

Fashion Icons: Twiggy

Twiggy is my tenth fashion icon in this series. I’ve already written posts about Jane Birkin, Sharon Tate, Britt Ekland, Uschi Obermaier, Anna Karina and Edie Sedgwick, Pattie Boyd, Kate Moss and Brigitte Bardot.

Twiggy! How could I not include her in my fashion icon series. She’s the symbol of the Swinging London and the sixties, and yeah, everyone knows her Mod skinny-legs phase but I want you to forget about that today. Forget the mini dress, colourful tights, blonde bob and big eyelashes, and enter the late 1960s Biba style that Twiggy rocked. Think of 1930s glamour mixed with bohemian flair of 1960s and 70s; wide brimmed hats, lots of jewellery, fur coats, feathers and dark lipsticks, neo-Victorian dresses and curly hair, tiny floral prints and cord trousers, long boots and 1920s sequin dresses, wine-coloured lips with lavender eyeshadow. I love this Biba look for Autumn and I find it very inspirational at the moment.

I hope you’ll enjoy the collages and a tad different approach on this very famous fashion icon. And for those of you who are more into Twiggy’s Mod style, there’s a few collages for you as well.

Fashion Icons: Brigitte Bardot

Ah, Brigitte Bardot! What can be said about this French actress, sex symbol and a 1950s and 60s fashion icon that wasn’t said already? She was simply gorgeous with her cat eyeliner, pouty lips and a messy blonde hairdo. She made St Tropez a hot spot, posed for Kess van Dongen, danced ballet, acted in many films, and had an amazing style that’s really timeless; from her elegant 1950s dresses, gingham print skirts and black shirts with the smallest waist ever, to her carefree seaside style with beach hair and barefoot-look, all the way to her classic Parisian 1960s look and her bohemian/gypset 1968 look. Brigitte Bardot is, along with Kate Moss, my ideal of a beautiful woman. She is a vegetarian and a lover of animals. This is one of her quotes:

“I gave my beauty and my youth to men. I am going to give my wisdom and experience to animals.”

Enjoy the collages!

Fashion Icons: Kate Moss

I have such a girl-crush on Kate Moss. I like her sense of fashion, her lifestyle and what she represents; in a posh world of models and celebrities filled with ‘perfect’ Instagram pictures, healthy food and fitness obsessiveness, Kate is the last of the 1990s party generation – she smokes, drinks and parties at nightclubs like there’s no tomorrow, while keeping an aura of mystery with her ‘never complain, never explain’ motto.

That kind of lifestyle certainly isn’t for me, but I like it because it’s different. Today, everyone seems obsessed with living healthy, having a beauty sleep, drinking enough water, jogging in the morning to stay in shape – that’s a life of boredom in my opinion. I believe in a quote by Sarah Bernhardt – “Life engenders life. Energy creates energy. It is by spending oneself that one becomes rich.”(*)

Style-wise, Kate is influenced by late sixties Brigitte Bardot, Marianne Faithfull and Anita Pallenberg rock chic look with long scarves, skinny jeans, black sequin dresses, leopard print coats, fur coats, opaque tights, messy bed hair and smokey eyes. She has that trashy-glamorous, just-got-out-of-bed appeal that I quite like. I’ve read somewhere that Kate likes wearing black and that her style rule is simply – never mix silver and gold jewellery.

You can read ’42 style tips to take from Kate Moss’ here.

And now the collages, the thing you’ll all waiting for!

Fashion Icons: Pattie Boyd II

Pattie Boyd is my seventh fashion icon in this series. I’ve already written posts about Jane Birkin, Sharon Tate, Britt Ekland, Uschi Obermaier, Anna Karina and Edie Sedgwick.

Pattie Boyd (b. 17 March 1944) was a model in times of Swinging London and a dolly bird who married my favourite Beatle – George Harrison, and later another great rock star – Eric Clapton. After being a model and a muse to two musicians, Pattie went on to become a photographer and an author by writing her autobiography Wonderful Tonight. Pattie holds a very special place in my heart because she was one of the first fashion icons of the 1960s that I fell in love with, and she was loved by George which is quite enough for me. And speaking of George and The Beatles, I have to mention their song Something which was written by George and inspired by Pattie herself! Do listen to it, the lyrics are so beautiful:

“Something in the way she moves
Attracts me like no other lover
Something in the way she woos me

I don’t want to leave her now

You know I believe and how

Somewhere in her smile she knows
That I don’t need no other lover
Something in her style that shows me

Don’t want to leave her now
You know I believe and how

You’re asking me will my love grow
I don’t know, I don’t know
You stick around now it may show
I don’t know, I don’t know…“

Pattie and George were a typical Mod-turned-Hippie couple. So, for her Mod-look think of mini dresses, cute jumpers with knee-length skirts, striped shirts, pointy shoes, black dresses with white collars, and the typical Mod make up. For her hippie phase think of floral dresses, flared paisley trousers, beads and long necklaces, floppy hats and longer, free-flowing dresses. Her hairstyle and make up also changed; for Mod style she wore heavy eye makeup, fringe and hair with flicked ends, and for her hippie phase she ditched the fringe and opted for a bit longer, more natural looking hair. Here you can read about Pattie’s tips on 1960s makeup and long hairstyle.

And now the collages:

Fashion Icons: Edie Sedgwick

Edie Sedgwick (1943-1971) was an American socialite mostly famous for being one of Warhol’s superstars at the Factory in the 1960s. With her eccentric behaviour Edie attracted Warhol’s attention and for a while this anorexic beauty from a prominent family was a star in New York City, at the same time when The Velvet Underground and Nico were doing their first light shows. Then she hooked up with Bob Dylan who broke her heart, and after a short marriage to Michael Post she died of barbiturate overdose at the age of 28.

To get this Poor-Little-Rich-Girl look think of large chandelier earrings, massive earrings, geometric prints, black and white combos, Mod A-line dresses, black tights with boots and gold or silver ultra mini dress, leopard print coat… She wore large fake eyelashes and it allegedly took her three hours to apply her make up! Film Factory Girl (2006) starring Sienna Miller as Edie is very good in my opinion and the costumes are really accurate.

Although Edie wasn’t the inspiration for Bob Dylan’s song Like a Rolling Stone, the lyrics bring the spirit of her short, glamorous and sad life:

“Once upon a time you dressed so fine
Threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn’t you?
People call say ‘beware doll, you’re bound to fall’
You thought they were all kidding you
You used to laugh about
Everybody that was hanging out
Now you don’t talk so loud
Now you don’t seem so proud
About having to be scrounging your next meal

How does it feel, how does it feel?
To be without a home
Like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone

Ahh you’ve gone to the finest schools, alright Miss Lonely
But you know you only used to get juiced in it
Nobody’s ever taught you how to live out on the street
And now you’re gonna have to get used to it
You say you never compromise
With the mystery tramp, but now you realize
He’s not selling any alibis
As you stare into the vacuum of his eyes
And say do you want to make a deal?

How does it feel, how does it feel?…“

Fashion Icons: Anna Karina

Anna Karina is a Danish-French film actress and for a while, in the 1960s, she was the muse of director Jean-Paul Godard. In his films such as Une Femme est Une Femme (1961), Bande a Part (1964), Vivre sa Vie (1962), Pierrot le Fou (1965) and Made in U.S.A. (1966) Anna Karina can be seen wearing beautiful yet simple outfits. Her costumes in Une Femme est Une Femme are especially eye-cathing; she wore red and blue skirts and dresses against the grey backdrop of Paris.

Her style is very chic, tailored and Parisian. If you want to dress like her, be sure to wear some coloured tights, I have them in all colours – blue, red, yellow, green, purple, and all thanks to Anna Karina. Her classic look would include grey knee-length skirt with red tights, cardigan and a trench coat. Whenever I wear something like that, I feel like I’m in one of Godard’s films. Now all you need is Jean-Paul Belmondo or Sami Frey and a book by Camus.

Let my collages speak for themselves.

Fashion Icons: Uschi Obermaier

Uschi Obermaier (b. 24 September 1946) is mostly remembered for being a groupie and a sex symbol of the ’68 generation. She really led a ‘wild life’, so it’s very appropriate that they named the film about her Das Wilde Leben or Eight Miles Heigh (2007), and she’s played by Natalia Avelon. I think the film captured the spirit of the times, and her clothes are wonderful. Her life was one big adventure, but it wasn’t always like that. In the early 1960s she was a bored and miserable teenager living in drab suburbs of Munich, just waiting for something fun to occur. She started modelling and for some time she was a member of an art bend/commune called Amon Düül. There she met Rainer Langhans and the rest is history. In 1969 she was already living in a commune in the capitalistic West Berlin with students and ‘rebels’ who praised socialism and sexual freedom.

Uschi and Rainer soon became ‘the star protagonists in a bizarre political experiment involving group cohabitation that was explicitly designed to shock Germany’s corseted conservative establishment to the core. Commune 1, as it was called, was Germany’s answer to San Francisco’s Haight Ashbury, but it had a seriously Teutonic streak. The gang of long-haired, dope smoking Maoist students who started the experiment by occupying a spacious turn-of-the-century apartment in central West Berlin, were out to explode and revolutionise the moribund values of post-war German society.‘ (source)

Uschi Obermaier and Rainer Langhans, c. 1969

After the Kommune 1, Uschi spent some nights together with Jimi Hendrix, Keith Richards and even Mick Jagger. She went on The Rolling Stones 1975 tour. From 1973-1983 she was in a relationship with Dieter Bockhorn and the two of them travelled in a bus through Asia, where they married in India, then Mexico and U.S. Uschi’s style is very psychedelic and rock chic. In my collages I used some photos from the film as well as pictures of Uschi herself.

You can read more about her here and here. You can watch a short footage of Jimi Henrix and Uschi in Berlin in 1969 here.

Fashion Icons: Britt Ekland

Well, as you may have noticed, this is a series I’ll be doing throughout summer – fashion icons, mainly from the 1960s. I wasn’t sure how persistent I would be at making this series because I tend to change my mind quickly, but I really enjoy doing these collages and trying out similar outfits and make up, and, you seem to enjoy it as well so I’ll continue.

Britt Ekland, an actress and big-blue-eyed Swedish beauty was born on 6 October 1942 in Stockholm. Today we’ll take a look at her style from 1960s and 1970s. Britt’s fashion path was similar to many sixties actresses, models and singers; she started the decade in a classic, elegant Mod look, and around 1967/68 embraced the psychedelic hippie look that was getting more and more popular. It’s funny when you look at the pictures, one moment she’s a sixties gal clad in Mod A-line dresses with heavy make up, and the next thing you know she’s wearing flared trousers, long coats and floral dresses.