Well, we're pretty sad our Biba Blog Series is coming to an end... Big Biba marks the last few years of Barbara Hulanicki & Fitzs' wonderland!
Big Biba was a 5 story empire of amazingness, including a 1930's Rooftop Garden, penthouse restaurant and so many levels of innovative interior design plus Biba clothing of course!
So we've broken up the next few stories into bite-size-chunks and today we're featuring The Rainbow Room!!
With the most lush Art Deco oval ceiling, they lit it up with colours of the rainbow, created a restaurant (that allowed women to dine solo, without a male chaperon - which was pretty remarkable for the times!), served everything on black plates with gold trimming & Biba logos and hosted some of the coolest-cats in town!
Below, we've added images and video's of some of the most notable performances... The New York Dolls came to town and shortly after this performance they started dominating the charts.
Bowie recorded a music video & so did Roxy Music. The Pointer Sisters performed to a packed room full of the likes of Ronnie Wood, Rod Stewart and so many more which can be seen on our last blog post!
And then we have some Marc Bolan & T-Rex in Biba:
One of our favourite stories from Barbara Hulanicki's autobiography is the party they threw for none other than Liberace's arrival in London. With already fabulous decor, they added even more to welcome a restaurant full of invite-only people... and then in walked Andrew Logan (who had designed the Rooftop Garden) & Zhandra Rhodes (read our blog post on her here!) dressed to impress, who'd came to gate-crash! And so they did!!
Below you'll find Freddie & Roger from Queen both in Biba:
You can certainly see the move into Glam Rock in the early 1970's!!
Below is a still from Roxy Music's video clip featuring the marvellous Big Biba stage.
Bryan Ferry & his girlfriend, Jerry Hall, who was to soon leave him for Mick Jagger!
Play the film clip's filmed in The Rainbow Room below:
David Bowie's Video filmed in the Rainbow Room for 'Blue Jean'
Roxy Music's film clip for 'Let's Stick Together.'
Suzi Quatro’s ‘Devil Gate Drive’ from 1974.
Naturally, when we were in London at the beginning of 2020 for Fashion Week, we popped into the Tom & Derry's building & found our way up the what used to be The Rainbow Room...
We can confirm, the roof is still there, without the rainbow lights - and there is still some of the original decor & mirrors but sadly, it is now functioning as a gym & health club... locked behind one of the doors was the magnificent Art Deco staircase, full of marble stairs, peeling paint and fabulous balustrades looking like it hadn't been touched since the Biba days!
Next on our Biba Blog we'll be venturing into the wonderful world of Big Biba: clothing, decor and everything in between!
Find more images on our Pinterest here: www.pinterest.com.au/flarestreet/big-biba-performances-photoshoots/
Our matching playlist featuring all of those that played, can be found below:
