Biba blouse

[abingdon-road-vintage]

Hello, I wondered if anybody had a view on this...my mum kindly bought me a Biba blouse from a lady who in turn had swapped it for an expensive collectable bear.

Now, the label is the black with woven gold Biba - what concerns me is that it has the original tag attached to it too, which says "made in Hong Kong"- did Barbara use overseas manufacturers or could this have occurred once Briitsh Land got involved? - It's also still in it's oriignal wrapper.

I really want to check my poor mum, whilst trying to do a good thing for me, has been sold what she was told she was buying, i.e. an original Biba blouse.

Any comments would be most appreciated,

Thanks

Jayne

(NB - it is a gorgeous bright red silk blouse!)

 

[emmapeelpants]

If you can show me a picture of the label, then I can say yes or no - it's a bit hard to tell without seeing it. I have seen Biba labels, originals - the printed ones, with 'Made in Hong Kong' or 'Made in India' on them. I think this became a more common thing in British fashion in the early-mid Seventies, probably linked with the bad economic situation in the UK at the time.

 

[abingdon-road-vintage]

Hello, thanks Liz - I shall try and get some pics on here, but that's encouraging.

 

[Circa Vintage Clothing]

After Biba closed down in 1975, Barbara Hulanicki sold the name and another business opened up in 1978. They produced clothes too, but closed down in 1980.

More rececently, Biba has started up again under new ownership - does your blouse look vintage? I suspect it's one of the more modern ones. If you look at ebay, you can see Bibas were made during the '80s as well, not sure who made those, but for a collectable Biba it needs to be one from the 1964-1975 period. Do you have pics? Are there any other labels, eg size, fabric? I think that the original Biba had all their manufacturing done locally.

 

[emmapeelpants]

Some original Bibas WERE made abroad, cheesecloth cotton pieces in India, shoes and boots in Italy and some knitwear in Hong Kong (those are the ones I know of). But I've only seen these indicated under the logo and Biba name on a printed label. As far as I know, the woven labels were the earliest ones before they switched to the (sometimes badly) printed satin ones. It does seem unlikely that this is original Biba if the Made In Hong Kong is on a separate label, as they didn't usually have separate labels - only occasionally later on when fabric content was required on garments.

The late 70s/early 80s Biba is a very thin font, woven gold on black. Whereas the late 60s/early 70s (the earliest Bibas weren't labelled at all, alas!) woven label is a more rounded font, as shown on the label resource. The former (the first relaunch of many) was, I believe, done by Barbara's sister - the actual Biba herself. Which I believe Barbara wasn't too chuffed about, and she seems to have launched her own name label around this time.