Biba – The Last Fashion Show

Ricci Burns Telegraph september 19th 1975

@MissPeelpants Liz Eggleston, John Steed’s Roxy Girl, posted: ‏Barbershop Quintet: When the teasing had to stop via The Telegraph Magazine, September 19th 1975. The line-up: Marianne Faithfull, Fenella Fielding, Ricci Burns, Sian Phillips, Brenda Arnaud.

That Telegraph colour supplement hung around for ages until it finally got drowned in a house move! On seeing the cover again I was, for some unknown reason, instantly transported back to a Biba fashion show (1974/5 not sure of the exact date)!

Biba was an imposing building on Kensington High Street, it’d been Derry and Toms department store. The fashion show was for Missoni, showing Italian knitwear, held in the roof garden restaurant. One of the more effervescent models did the can-can, but forgot to put her knickers on; which brought the house down – the louder they screamed, the higher her kicks!

I knew one of the models, and between shows we took our drinks out on to the roof garden. But quite frankly, the shop was in massive decline and it looked very sorry for itself – It was Biba’s last fashion show.

I suppose the Telegraph cover has a Biba-esque feel?

Must say I love Liz’s brilliant blog: Get Some Vintage-a-Peel – Very evocative for me, especially as I’ve worked with most of the models – I got to the point where I half expected to see some of my early work …no such luck! Oh hang on, Marianne Faithfull :-) xXx