British actor Hugh Grant took to the front row of London Fashion Week
on Tuesday for the hottest ticket in town -- the revival of iconic Sixties label
Biba.
More than forty years on from its launch, the brand that helped define the
Swinging Sixties came back to life as a more luxurious line for the 21st century
hippy.
Designer Bella Freud, Sigmund's great grand-daughter, rubbed shoulders with
Grant and a gaggle of fashion editors for a show organisers had hoped would lend
some Sixties buzz to the flagging London fashion event.
"It is a really good time to bring Biba back because people's aesthetic and
generally what people are interested in correspond so much with what Biba was,"
Freud told Reuters Television backstage before the show.
Biba, founded in 1964, effectively invented the fast fashion scene that now
defines the 10 billion pound ($19 billion) British industry by making fashion
accessible and shopping a leisure activity.
Founder Barbara Hulanicki mixed Art Nouveau with old Hollywood, dressing
1960s stars Brigitte Bardot, Raquel Welch, Mick Jagger, Marianne Faithful,
Twiggy and Julie Christie having turned a mail order service into the first
fashion superstore.
Freud's modern take stayed true to the original color scheme of mulberries,
blueberries, rusts and plums but added more modern textiles for her collection
of jumpsuits, pinafores and print shirts.
However, London Fashion Week organisers may be overly optimistic in hoping
the reborn Biba will help revitalise London's flagging reputation as a fashion
capital on a par with New York, Milan and Paris.
One front row guest, who declined to be named, said looking back in time
might not be enough to shake up London's present.
"I liked the parts that followed the Biba look most closely, like the white
flowing shirts, but I wasn't so impressed with the rest. Overall, I'm not
convinced about the longevity of the project."
