Teenagers who came up to London in the early ‘seventies headed straight for Big Biba – in the former Derry & Toms Art Deco department store in Kensington.
It was an inviting Aladdin's cave. Bentwood hatstands groaned with slinky maxi- and mini-dresses, many slitheringly bias-cut, in black, plum; rust, aubergine; bottle green. Feather boas, once preferred by prostitutes, fluttered on top. Biba's swirling black-and-gold Mucha-esque logo (inspired by a nearby undertaker's) increased the raffish allure.
The seventies Biba Dolly combined moon-faced innocence
