Beyond Biba

Tickets have sold out for Barbara Hulanicki, founder of the iconic clothes store Biba, who is returning to the city where she learned her craft for a screening of a new documentary about her life.

Barbara, 72, studied illustration in the early 1950s at what was Brighton College of Art and became the Faculty of Arts at the University of Brighton.

The documentary entitled ‘Beyond Biba’ will be shown at the faculty’s Sallis Benney Theatre at the Grand Parade site at 6pm on October 29 and will be followed by a question-and-answers session with Barbara herself.

The film, produced by November Films, tells the story of the Warsaw-born fashion designer, including details on her early life, the time she enjoyed in Brighton and also how she started Biba with her husband Stephen Fitz-Simon, the shop that changed Britain’s fashion in the 1960s and 1970s.

In the nineties, she arrived in Miami Beach where she designed interiors for Ron Wood of the Rolling Stones and Chris Blackwell’s Boutique Hotel Group. She is credited with the resurrection of Miami Beach’s crumbling Art Deco district.

As well as her interior design work, she has also delved back into the fashion world, designing for Coccinelle, Habitat, Graham and Brown and recently a clothing range for Topshop.