Hi, new to the forum, male, late sixties, wife, daughter, granddaughter, grew up with three sisters. As far as female fashion is concerned, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Mind you, I did have very brief attempt at studying fashion design, many years ago. I hope someone can help, in the late Sixties I visited an old department store in London that was home to lots of designers, The layout was of each designer having a sales space and workshop area, and customers would take clothes from hanging rails and try them on. Most of the stalls had one or two sewing machines working and clothes would be finished, ironed and hung up, then tried on and purchased in one flow. The building was great, with stained glass windows and ornate iron balustrades etc. This was about 5 years before Barbara Hulanicki opened Big Biba at Derry and Toms old shop. The question I would like answered, if anyone remembers, is "What was the name of the building" Thank you
It wasn't the Liberty building perchance? This is well before my time I'm afraid but your description of the architecture made me think of it. It's also one of the only buildings and companies large enough in central London to have supported something of that scale. I don't know though, just a guess. I did watch a couple of programmes about it (inside Liberty, it may have been called?) and it does appear they have supported new designers and given areas of the store over to particular traders for many decades, the themed areas is very much how they operate.
This might help jog your memory - it's UK wide, so the lists are long, but it has separate sections for defunct stores: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_department_stores_of_the_United_Kingdom Do you remember where in London it was?
Hi, no I can't remember where it was, but others have suggested that it might have been the Derry and Toms building in a transition period between running as a normal department store and opening as Big Biba. This sounds quite plausible, whatever, it is a treasured memory, the atmosphere in that place was wonderful.
Derry and Toms is an Art Deco building so unlikely to have wrought iron balustrades: that sounds more Victorian or Edwardian, and rather grand. I doubt that it's Liberty because the beautiful building features wood panelling and Tudor style, not so much wrought iron. It needs to be older, and grand, perhaps Selfridge's or Harrod's? Department stores are a dying art, there used to be hundreds in London probably, but having seamstresses in every concession reminds me more of the old Hyper Hyper, which was in Kensington High St. Also called Kensington markets. I went there in '91 and it was full of small designers creating and altering garments for their clientele. But I can't remember what the building was liked. They demolished it in 2001. It was close to Derry and Tom's though: diagonally opposite.
