The Art of Barbara Hulanicki
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Born in Poland, but raised in England, Barbara Hulanicki began her career in Fashion in the early 1960’s working as a freelance fashion illustrator covering all the important fashion collections for the major publications of the day, including Women’s Wear Daily, British Vogue, the Times, the Observer and the Sunday Times. In 1964 she founded, with her late husband, Stephen Fitz-Simon, the boutique BIBA, beginning as a small mail-order business featured in the fashion columns of newspapers such as the Daily Mirror.
The Biba success story is worthy of a Hollywood movie: a husband and wife, Barbara Hulanicki and her partner, Stephen Fitz-Simon, go into business together against the advice of those around them. After a few false starts and refusing to give up, their last-ditched attempt — a pink gingham dress with a round hole in the back and a matching head scarf — strikes a chord with the public and sells thousands of units, allowing them to open a store which becomes an icon of hip 60’s and 70’s London. It becomes a hangout for artists, film stars and rock musicians, including Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones, David Bowie and Marianne Faithful among the regulars. The first Biba store was a small Chemist’s shop in Abingdon Road, but by the time Biba’s doors closed in 1976 it had evolved into an elaborate 5-story Art Deco department store with a restaurant and a roof garden overlooking High Street Kensington. The avant-garde BIBA cosmetics brand was being sold in 33 countries across the globe.
Biba finally closed its doors in 1976, a victim of corporate raiding before the term had even entered the business vernacular. Hulanicki continued to work in Fashion, designing for such fashion greats as Fiorucci and Cacharel and for twelve years, from 1980 to 1992, designed a successful line of children’s wear, MINIROCK, licensed to the Japanese market.
In 1980, she returned to the UK from living in glamorous Brazil to open a series of clothing boutiques and start a make-up line, all under her own name. From 1980 to 1987, she dabbled in fashion photography for the London Evening Standard and returned briefly to fashion illustration to draw Sarah Ferguson’s wedding dress for the London newspapers. In 1983 she wrote her memoirs in the book FROM A TO BIBA, which was published by Hutchinson’s. In 1987 she arrived in Miami Beach where she reinvented herself yet again as a designer of interiors and exteriors, single-handedly reconceiving Miami Beach’s then re-emerging Art Deco District. Her projects began with Woody’s on the Beach, which she designed in 1987 for Ron Wood of the Rolling Stones. She created a series of restaurants, night clubs and super-clubs, including Who’s in the Grove, Sempers, Match Club and Bolero Restaurant. From 1992 to 1997 she worked for Gloria and Emilio Estefan designing the interiors for their personal recording studios, the interiors of the Cardozo Hotel on Ocean Drive, their private home on Star Island, costumes for the music video “Mi Buen Amor”, as well as consulting on BONGO, the Estefan’s restaurant project in Disney World, Orlando, with the Architectonica Group.
From 1990 to the present, Hulanicki has perhaps had the most impact on Miami Beach through her work for Chris Blackwell and his Island Outpost Group. She has twice reconceived the MARLIN Hotel, on Collins Avenue, as well as the CAVALIER Hotel, Ocean Drive, the LESLIE Hotel, Ocean drive, The NETHERLANDS building, Ocean Drive, and now the KENT on Collins Avenue. Other Caribbean properties she has designed for Blackwell include the COMPASS POINT Hotel and beach resort in Nassau, Bahamas - which is prominently featured in all the Bahamian Tourist Board television commercials - the PINK SANDS resort on Harbor Island, Bahamas. In 1993 Hulanicki won an award from the American Institute of Architects for her work on the NETHERLANDS, as well as an award from an association of Florida Architects. From 2001 to 2002 she worked on the Island life Ministore, located in the heart of Miami Beach on Ocean Drive. This unique shop was renovated completely by Hulanicki at owner Chris Blackwell’s request. Coined as “tropical lux,” this lifestyle store contained a large collection of gift items, music and film, jewelry and accessories from around the world. It also boasted men’s, women’s and children’s apparel custom colored and designed by Hulanicki herself.
Hulanicki’s most recent projects have included private luxury homes on Palm Island and Dilido Island in Miami as well as several commercial properties, including the BEACH HOUSE on Harbor Island, Bahamas, as well as hotel development for Chris Blackwell’s GOLDENEYE in Oracabessa, Jamaica. She has also delved back into product design, designing a home range for U.S. launch in 2008, as well as designing Wallpaper for HABITAT stores in the UK.
The crowning achievement of Hulanicki’s impact can be witnessed in the opening of the Hollywood hit movie “The Birdcage”. A sweeping helicopter shot flows over the waves to zero in on the primary location for the film, the Cleveland Hotel on Ocean Drive which is flanked by no less than four Hulanicki-designed buildings - the Leslie, the Cardozo, the Cavalier and the Netherlands.
Additionally, throughout her career, Hulanicki has designed costumes for several stage and film productions, including clothing for Cathy McGowan on the influential live TV rock show “READY STEADY GO” (1964), outfits for Julie Christie in “DARLING” (1965), costumes for local productions in Miami Beach, costumes for old friend and Biba model Twiggy for “CAPTAIN BEAKY” in London’s West End and her Royal Command Performance in 1976.