This picture was taken for the press around the time we lost Biba [the shop, on Kensington High Street in London, closed in 1975]. I’m wearing a pair of black satin pyjamas with off-white piping – I’d been inspired by Marlene Dietrich, who was pictured wearing something similar. We did pyjamas in our first Biba catalogue, too – it’s a look that’s been going for ever. In Miami, where I now live, all the department stores are still full of it.
This look was very Biba: satin was our big thing. People would often wear our negligees and nighties out in the evenings. It’s the sort of thing I would have worn to a party or dinner, but not to work – it’s too floppy. I’m also wearing a collection of vintage jewellery. In those days, the vintage stuff, oh my God. It was amazing. Now it’s so expensive and all the good stuff is gone.
When you’re designing, you can’t wear anything that’s too “strong” yourself because you’re too conscious of what you’re wearing. You’ve got to sort of blank yourself out. Colour-wise, I was always in black and I still am now. When we first started, in 1964, black was a no-no colour. It was a rebel colour. Most young people didn’t wear it – can you imagine?
Biba was also all about interiors – the shop was meant to look like your living room at home. You could go to vintage dealers early on a Monday morning and pick up the most incredible things – they would be museum pieces now. It was like fishing: you would never know what you might come back with. We didn’t play music at home because it was music all day at the shop – and loud too. Home was time to give your ears a break.
Biba was known as a celebrity hangout [frequented by Mick Jagger, David Bowie and Marianne Faithfull, among others] but I wasn’t inspired by our clients – most of them were just starting out. Audrey Hepburn is the person whose style I most admire. It wasn’t just the clothes, but the way she wore them, and her image. She goes on and on being a hero in the fashion world.
