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Biba
Biba was a London fashion store of the 1960s and 1970s. Biba was started and primarily run by the Polish-born Barbara Hulanicki with help of her husband Stephen Fitz-Simon. Early years Biba's early years were rather humble, with many of the outfits being inexpensive and available to the public by mail order. The first store, in Abingdon Road in Kensington, was opened in September 1964. Biba's postal boutique had its first significant success in May 1964 when it offered a pink gingham dress with a hole cut out of the back of the neck with a matching triangular kerchief to readers of the ''Daily Mirror''. The dress had celebrity appeal, as a similar dress had been worn by Brigitte Bardot. By the morning after the dress was advertised in the ''Daily Mirror'', over 4,000 orders had been received. Ultimately, some 17,000 outfits were sold. Following this success, Biba moved to new, enhanced premises in Kensington Church Street. Hulanicki worked as a fashion illustrator after studyin ...
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Steve Thomas (artist)
Steven Thomas (born Harry Steven Thomas, 30 October 1944) is an English designer and visual artist best known for his interiors and graphic design work for the Biba fashion brand. With design partner Tim Whitmore, Thomas led the small team which generated numerous designs and branding for the company's ambitious seven-storey department store known as "Big Biba" in London's Kensington High Street in the early to mid-1970s. In the 1960s, Thomas represented groups including Peter Frampton's group The Herd and went on to create designs for such music business clients as the Rolling Stones and Paul McCartney as well as brands such as Levi's, Lucky Strike, Subaru and British American Racing. With Alwyn W. Turner, Thomas is the author of Welcome To Big Biba. In 2008, Thomas was the subject of the exhibition Big Biba And Other Stories at London gallery Chelsea Space. Early life and education Thomas was born in Chipping Norton. He attended Latymer Upper School in Hammersmith, wes ...
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Barbara Hulanicki
Barbara Hulanicki (b. 1936) is a fashion designer, born in Warsaw, Poland, to Polish parents and best known as the founder of clothes store Biba. Career Hulanicki was born in Warsaw, Poland, to Polish parents. Her father, Witold Hulanicki, was assassinated by the Stern Gang in Jerusalem in 1948, and the family moved to Brighton, England. While studying from 1954 to 1956 at the Brighton School of Art, Hulanicki won an Evening Standard'' competition in 1955 for beachwear. She began her career in fashion as a freelance fashion illustrator for various magazines, including ''Vogue'', ''Tatler'' and ''Women's Wear Daily''. Hulanicki sold her first designs through a small mail-order business that was featured in the fashion columns of newspapers such as the London ''Daily Mirror''. In 1964, she opened her Biba shop in the Kensington district of London with the help of her late husband, Stephen Fitz-Simon. The shop soon became known for its "stylishly decadent atmosphere" and decor i ...
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Derry & Toms
Derry & Toms was a London department store that was founded in 1860 in Kensington High Street and was famous for its Roof Garden which opened in 1938. In 1973 the store was closed and became home to Big Biba, which closed in 1975. The site was developed into smaller stores and offices. Origins In 1853 Joseph Toms opened a small drapery shop on Kensington High Street. In 1862 Joseph Toms joined forces with his brother-in-law, Charles Derry, to set up Derry & Toms. By 1870 the business had grown to incorporate seven of the surrounding stores, with one of the buildings being used as a mourning department. The company prided itself as being the supplier of goods to the upper class of Kensington. History In 1920 John Barker & Co., the department store next door, acquired Derry & Toms. The firm already owned Pontings, which was adjacent to Derry & Toms on the other side. In 1919 Derry & Toms employed the services of poster artist F Gregory Brown to produce advertising. His advert ...
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Prudence Millinery
Prudence Millinery designs and makes couture hats for major designers all over the world. A brief history Prudence was born in New-York, USA. A graduate of New York's Fashion Institute of Technology and a former assistant buyer for the Associated Merchandising Corporation, she left New York and moved to London in 1986. After working as a free-lance fashion stylist, she trained for several years in couture millinery. Her hats are made in the classical manner using only traditional millinery techniques. Prudence designed her first collection for spring 1991 under her own label, Prudence Millinery, and received orders from Bergdorf Goodman and Henri Bendel both in New York City. Her collaboration with Vivienne Westwood started in 1990 and she still creates today hat collections for Vivienne Westwood and has created designs for many other top fashion designers such as Yves Saint Laurent, Gucci, Julien MacDonald, Biba and many others. Prudence currently designs and makes the hats for ...
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Daisy Lowe
Daisy Rebecca Lowe (born 27 January 1989) is an English fashion model who has modelled for editorial photo shoots, commercial advertising campaigns and fashion shows. She is the daughter of Pearl Lowe, the singer-songwriter turned textile and fashion designer, and Gavin Rossdale, lead singer of the rock band Bush. Early life Lowe was born in Westminster, London, England, on January 27, 1989. She grew up in Primrose Hill, North London, and stayed with grandparents to continue her education at South Hampstead High School, when her mother, Pearl Lowe, moved to Hampshire. Lowe has two younger half-brothers and a half-sister from her mother's marriage to Danny Goffey; Alfie, Frankie and Betty. She also has three younger half-brothers from her father's marriage to Gwen Stefani; Kingston, Zuma and Apollo. She is Jewish. Until 2004, Lowe was believed to be the daughter of Pearl Lowe's ex-lover Bronner Handwerger, but a paternity test revealed that her godfather, Bush singer/guitarist ...
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Dorothy Perkins
Dorothy Perkins is an online British women's fashion brand based in the United Kingdom. Formerly a store chain, it sold both its own range of clothes and branded fashion goods until February 2021, when it became part of Boohoo.com, having been acquired after the collapse of Philip Green's fashion empire Arcadia Group. History Founded in 1909 under the name H. P. Newman, the company changed its trading name to Dorothy Perkins in 1919. In the 1960s, Dorothy Perkins was controlled by the Farmer family, who used to own Winster Hosiery. Staff in the branches could expect regular visits from Alan Farmer, whose picture was printed in a booklet handed to new employees. Best known for its lingerie, tights, and sleepwear collections, its other clothes had difficulty competing with the more trendy Lewis Separates, now owned by River Island Clothing Company Ltd, and Peter Robinson. In the late 1960s, Dorothy Perkins co-funded Biba's expansion into a large boutique on Kensington High S ...
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Kensington Roof Gardens
Kensington Roof Gardens (formerly known as Derry and Toms Roof Gardens and later The Roof Gardens) is a private roof garden covering on top of the former Derry & Toms building on Kensington High Street in central London. Originally opened in 1938, the gardens were open to the public until January 2018 when the leaseholder, Virgin Limited Edition, was unable to reach an agreement with the freeholder about renewal of the lease. History Derry and Toms new Art Deco department store was opened in 1933. The gardens were laid out between 1936 and 1938 by Ralph Hancock, a landscape architect who had just created the "Gardens of the Nations" on the 11th floor of the RCA Building in New York, on the instructions of Trevor Bowen (then vice-president of Barkers, the department store giant that owned the site and constructed the building). They cost £25,000 to create and visitors were charged 1 shilling to enter. Money raised was donated to local hospitals and £120,000 was raised dur ...
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Dennis Day
Dennis Day (born Owen Patrick Eugene McNulty; May 21, 1916 – June 22, 1988) was an American actor, comedian, and singer. He was of Irish descent. Early life Day was born and raised in the Throggs Neck section of the Bronx, New York City, the second of five children born to Irish immigrants Patrick McNulty and Mary (née Grady) McNulty. His father was a factory electric power engineer. Day graduated from the Cathedral Preparatory School and Seminary and attended Manhattan College in the Bronx, where he sang in the glee club. In 1939, Gene McNulty, as Day was then known, sang on network radio with bandleader Larry Clinton. The Clinton broadcasts were aimed at the collegiate audience, and were often broadcast from a college campus. The 23-year-old McNulty won an audience poll as a favorite vocalist. Radio Day appeared for the first time on Jack Benny's radio show on October 8, 1939, taking the place of another tenor, Kenny Baker. He remained associated with Benny's radio and ...
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Mayfair
Mayfair is an affluent area in the West End of London towards the eastern edge of Hyde Park, in the City of Westminster, between Oxford Street, Regent Street, Piccadilly and Park Lane. It is one of the most expensive districts in the world. The area was originally part of the manor of Eia and remained largely rural until the early 18th century. It became well known for the annual "May Fair" that took place from 1686 to 1764 in what is now Shepherd Market. Over the years, the fair grew increasingly downmarket and unpleasant, and it became a public nuisance. The Grosvenor family (who became Dukes of Westminster) acquired the land through marriage and began to develop it under the direction of Thomas Barlow. The work included Hanover Square, Berkeley Square and Grosvenor Square, which were surrounded by high-quality houses, and St George's Hanover Square Church. By the end of the 18th century, most of Mayfair was built on with upper-class housing; unlike some nearby areas ...
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Bella Freud
Isobel Lucia Freud (born 17 April 1961), better known as Bella Freud, is a London-based fashion designer. Life and career Freud was born in London, England. She is the daughter of Bernardine Coverley and artist Lucian Freud, and the great-granddaughter of the inventor of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud. Her maternal grandparents were practising Roman Catholics of Irish descent, but her mother was no longer observant, while her father's family were Jewish atheists. She identifies as Jewish. Her only full sibling is her sister, writer Esther Freud, who wrote the memoir of their hippie childhood in Morocco, ''Hideous Kinky''. Freud was married to journalist James Fox in 2001. They have a son, James "Jimmy" Lux Fox. The couple separated in 2017. See also * Freud family References External linksBella Freud Website* 1961 births English Jews English people of German-Jewish descent English people of Irish descent Fashion designers from London British women fashion desi ...
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British Land Company
The British Land Company plc is one of the largest property development and investment companies in the United Kingdom. The firm became a real estate investment trust when REITs were introduced in the UK in January 2007. It is headquartered in London, England. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index and a founding member of the European Public Real Estate Association. History The British Land Company was founded in 1856 as an offshoot of the National Freehold Land Society (later Abbey National) formed in 1849 with the two chief architects of the freehold land movement Richard Cobden and John Bright. Both were ardent supporters of a movement to extend enfranchisement. To qualify for a parliamentary vote it was then necessary to be a landowner and the main object of the National Freehold was to facilitate the acquisition of small plots of land by the people. To do this the British Land Co. would purchase land and then resell it on t ...
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Fast Fashion
Fast fashion is a term used to describe the clothing industry's business model of replicating recent catwalk trends and High fashion, high-fashion designs, mass production, mass-producing them at a low cost, and bringing them to retail stores quickly, while demand is at its highest. The term ''fast fashion'' is also used generically to describe the products of the fast fashion business model. Fast fashion grew during the late 20th century as manufacturing of clothing became less expensive — the result of more efficient supply chains and new quick response manufacturing methods, and greater reliance on low-cost labor from the apparel manufacturing industries of South, Southeast, and East Asia, where women make up 85-90% of the garment workforce. Labor practices of fast fashion are often exploitative, and due to the gender concentration of the garment industry, women are more vulnerable. Retailers who employ the fast fashion strategy include Primark, H&M, Shein (company), Shein, ...
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