My new favourite scarf is from GAP and the bright blue, green and purples have helped to make these low temperatures a little more bearable but let’s talk about the iPad! After blogging about my favourite Christmas present in this post, it turns out that Dotcomgiftshop chose me as their competition winner, yay! My family have also been sharing my prize from my 14 yr old sister who has been avidly tumblr-ing countless pictures of ice creams and puppies to my parents who have been watching Chinese videos on YouTube and catching up on X Factor. So a BIG thank you to the Dotcomgiftshop team – my birthday is in a weeks time so it has been a wonderful early birthday present!
Teacup (c/o Camila Prada)
I’ve always got a book or two on the go and I have almost finished Barbara Hulanicki’s autobiography ‘From A to Biba’. The book begins in her early childhood in Palestine right through to the unplanned success of the Biba store and ultimately a record of it’s sad demise. Hulanicki’s Big Biba on London’s Kensington High Street (also the subject of this exhibition) was a 7 Storey treasure trove and a true visual and sensory wonderland – from the roof garden with real life flamingoes and peacocks to the basement food floors and child play areas. It pioneered tester make up – allowing customers to try before you buy and this wonderful video by Lisa Eldridge is really worth watching. The place was full of imaginative visual merchandising with plenty of Art Nouveau and Art Deco touches. Dreamy!
I’ve always said that if I could step back in time, I would go straight to the 1960s because culturally there was so much happening in Music, Art and Fashion. While I could go on and on about the Art History side of things (Richard Hamilton and Peter Blake are some of my all time favourite artists and prolific in this decade) I wish I could step back in time and wander through the magical wonderland that was Biba.
