01/03/2010
Welcome to Big Biba Inside the Most Beautiful Store in the World
Steven Thomas, Alwyn W Turner

Devoted entirely to Big Biba, documenting the transformation of the original Derry & Toms building into the Superstore Boutique.

Big Biba, the final flowering of Barbara Hulanicki's legendary Biba store in London, was a shop like no other, before or since. It was a fabulous fantasy palace that brought the indulgence of Hollywood to the world of retail. Big Biba lasted just two years before it fell victim to recession, but the myth of the most beautiful store in the world continues to enchant both its former habitués and those who came to it too late.

Welcome to Big Biba is the first book dedicated entirely to this dreamland, with over 150 colour photographs - most published here for the first time - of the store and of the products and graphics created for the various departments, from bathrooms to ball-gowns, from cosmetics to colouring-books. Styled by Steven Thomas, the designer of Big Biba itself, and with text by Alwyn W Turner, (author of The Biba Experience also on sale on CBN CandleBook News Bookshop), this book evokes the glamour, humour and fantasy of the store, the audacious style that could turn a shop girl into a Hollywood star.

« Book Reviews