You don't open an online business that booms into Biba, the 5-story legendary boutique symbol of the Swinging London, nor are honored with an OBE if there'snt something out of the ordinary in you and your name is not Barbara Hulanicki.
I had the privilege of sitting one afternoon in Barbara's office in Miami Beach where she has elected to live and work. We shared coffee secrets, I listened to fashion anecdotes as a child at story time, I absorbed every minimal detail I could from her longtime assistant/manager/so delightful I want her as my best friend Likrish.
WARNING: it is clear I didn't want to leave and I really have exploited Barbara, I think I should apologize for not wanting to stop asking questions, shamelessly. To my defense though, believe me when I say you would have done the same.
FB - From Biba to the OBE (congratulations, from fashion illustration to interior design, from exhibiting your own works to working with such visionaires as Elio Fiorucci, Chris Blackwell and the Estefan’s, you are a pedigreed living icon. What’s your secret weapon?
BH - I have to move forward. I love to learn what makes men with a vision tick. They have this direct way from going from A to Z without any distractions on the way. Women are forever life shopping. I find it fascinating to work through other people’s minds as I find I am so predictable to myself and I do find that boring.
FB - What was the catalyst that brought you from a small mail-in order business with the dream of just selling your creations to becoming the designer that defined an era in a 5-story department store in the center of London?
BH - I was so lucky to marry a man who one of the A to Z people and he guided me. When I got into a fluster he always pointed me back in the right direction. He never crossed over on the creative side and believed that my ideas were always right. Everyone needs a mate of that caliber.
“I find it fascinating to work through other people’s minds as I find I am so predictable to myself, and i find that boring ”
FB - The use of the word icon and iconic has been inflated lately, for the sake of labeling everything and everyone: the IT bag, the Icon XXX Award, the IT girl and the thumbs up Emoji. Biba’s success was fruit of a lot of efforts but organic, it happened because it was the truer than true expression of that generation and those years. Did you know you were an icon and felt the pressure of living up to the expectations or enjoyed the freedom of self-expression?
BH - I never wanted the business to have my name so would not have to be upfront. It is a full-time job being a celebrity. I like to be behind the spotlight as I can get on with the people watching. This is how you learn in my opinion and you have to plod on, and I am a plodder.
FB - Your artistic career evolved in time and space, in a ground-breaking expansion from London to Miami through Brazil. Do you still feel like being Biba or that is a fabulous and cherished glorious phase of your life that reflects into your current YOU?
BH - I get nostalgic about Biba as it was so friendly and genuine, today everything has become so corporate. It is almost a sin to have an individual idea. That is why I love illustrations as no one can interfere with his or her ideas when you are working.
“I like to be behind the spotlight as i can get on with the people watching”
FB – This year marks the 40th anniversary of Giorgio Armani, whose legacy is a forever mark of the Made in Italy, I see some similarity with the Biba look, which by the way, would be much older! I am not being flirtatious just because I am in front of one of my idols whom I have mentioned in my University graduation thesis decades ago, I am referring in specific to the gamine look, tweeds, three-piece suit, floppy wide brimmed hats, wing-tips: am I so off line?
BH - Yes, Biba is fifty years old. The strength of Biba was it was for wardrobe and lifestyle, for the daily working girls. Biba was not designed for fashion shows, or untouchable girls wearing untouchable clothes with exotic backdrops. In Biba, the backdrop was the shop itself.
ON HOW TO BE ITALIAN
FB - Can Italian style be confined in a one-word definition? And, if so, which one would the word be?
BH - Very solid and beautiful and it always looks good in your closet. The clothes are for very organized women, with no flash.
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FB - Are you of the advice that you can adopt a look, do you think one can learn how to be Italian?
BH - Yes, why not? Your won idea of Italian might be great fun!
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FB - You have been an innovator, a pioneer and collaborated with Elio Fiorucci, a staple of a specific moment in the history of the Made in Italy. Do you think the ‘Made in Italy’ still holds its crown?
BH - It will always hold the crown because of the years of beautiful manufacturing. That simply doesn’t go away.
FB - Fashion and trends are two opposite pulling forces: right or wrong? Which to follow?
BH - Trends are you mad moments, usually a mistake for YOU.
FB - The democratization of luxury brought more style in the streets or, contradictorily, confined it on the runway?
BH - There has to be a snobbery in fashion, It is the unattainable for most women who want just one extremely expensive piece. You have to have the right kind of friends.
FB - With years as an Italian expat, I came to conclude that Italian style is that harmonious mix of culture, art, design, creativity, passion and conviviality. What’s the element that comes before anything else according to you?
BH - Mostly creativity. That is the most important.
PERSONAL & CONFIDENTIAL
- Morning tea or coffee? Coffee
- When I grow up I want to be: A film set designer
- If you had a chance to live in another decade which one would that be? The 1930’s
- I never travel without My dark glasses
- The book on my nightstand too many to name, and mostly half read.