LEANNE DELAP
From Saturday's Globe and Mail Published on Saturday, Apr. 28, 2007 12:00AM EDT Last updated on Friday, Mar. 13, 2009 9:35PM EDT
I wish I were cool enough to have clocked the name Biba when it was around the first time, but mercifully I can plead that I was too young.
Biba was basically the first destination store in London, created by Barbara Hulanicki in 1964. One of the first "curated" shopping experiences, it spawned a movement on Kensington High Street.
In its time, Biba (the label and the chain lived until 1975) was a happening. The main shop became a hangout - the kind of place where Anita Pallenberg might rub shoulders with David Bowie on a sprawling leopard-print sofa.
The emporium helped make London swing, pushing both mini-dresses and its own peculiar colours, such as puce, off-brown and a dull olive. The rich came, and so did the aspiring classes.
You could tell there was a move afoot to resurrect the label a couple years ago: There was much nostalgia for Hulanicki in fashion mags. And lo, come fall 2006, the label was relaunched in London.
This outfit, from the spring 2007 collections, stays close to the original Biba aesthetic (and costs about $545). In fact, it riffs on a classic Biba look: vest over dress.
The line is now designed by Bella Freud (daughter of British portraitist Lucien Freud). Freud did her own, avant-garde line for a while. Then she did some fantastic stuff for the label Jaeger (my favourite dress is by her from that period, a floor-dragger navy and white striped gown). But this season of Biba, when viewed on style.com, looks untethered and tatty. Yet it is an important harbinger. The vest, my dears, is back.
I never dug the Annie Hall thing (kooky is always an affected stance to take in life). This look packs more oomph. I bet all you woman have an old tux vest stashed away somewhere. (If you are from Toronto, I will double my bet that it came from Courage My Love). Pull it out and cinch yourself in.
Or, hit Zara for the knockoff at $70, and wear it over a long T-shirt. If you are young and cool, do wear it over a dress (it can make the little bitties of back fat that gather when you hit 25 look prominent).
I'm all for a legend being celebrated. And I think Freud is a talented hire. Let's give her some time to find her feet.
And mark my words, as much as you don't want to wear a vest again, you will be pulling one on shamelessly in a year.
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