Barbara Hulanicki
b. 1939
Warsaw, Poland
Video interview with Barbara Hulanicki OBE for the Victoria and Albert Museum exploring the history of Biba, British fashion design, fashion illustration, and the lasting influence of 1960s and 1970s London style.
Barbara Hulanicki
Barbara Hulanicki OBE was born in Warsaw, Poland, and emerged as one of the defining creative voices of 1960s and 1970s British fashion and design. At just nineteen years old, while studying at Brighton Art College, Hulanicki won a beachwear competition sponsored by the London Evening Standard, launching a career that would quickly establish her as one of London’s most recognizable fashion illustrators. Her drawings soon appeared in publications including Vogue, Tatler, and Women’s Wear Daily.
In 1964, alongside her late husband Stephen Fitz-Simon, Hulanicki founded Biba, the legendary London boutique and lifestyle brand that helped define the visual identity of Swinging London. With its theatrical interiors, Art Deco glamour, and accessible yet highly stylized fashion, Biba became a cultural phenomenon. The Kensington store attracted artists, musicians, models, and fashion icons including David Bowie, Marianne Faithfull, Mick Jagger, and a young Anna Wintour, helping shape an era whose influence continues to reverberate through fashion, music, retail, and visual culture today.
Following Biba’s closure in 1976, Hulanicki continued her work across fashion, textiles, costume design, interiors, and branding, collaborating with companies including Fiorucci, Cacharel, Topshop, and Habitat. In the 1980s she relocated to Miami, where she reinvented herself once again, this time as an acclaimed interior designer. Her projects have included hotels, restaurants, private residences, and commercial spaces for clients including Ronnie Wood, Gloria and Emilio Estefan, and Chris Blackwell. Her celebrated redesign of the Cardozo Hotel and the historic Netherland building on Miami Beach earned recognition from the American Institute of Architects.
Throughout her career, Hulanicki has continued to work fluidly between fashion illustration, interiors, costume design, textiles, and fine art. In 2009 the Victoria and Albert Museum republished her memoir From A to Biba, which inspired the documentary Beyond Biba. In 2012, Brighton Museum & Art Gallery presented a major retrospective dedicated to her life and work.
Today, Hulanicki’s illustrations and design work remain instantly recognizable for their elegance, theatricality, and distinctive visual language, continuing to influence generations of artists, designers, stylists, and fashion historians internationally.
Barbara Hulanicki OBE is a British fashion designer, illustrator, and cultural icon best known as the founder of Biba, the legendary London fashion label and lifestyle brand that helped define the visual identity of the 1960s and 1970s. Widely regarded as one of the most influential figures of her era in fashion and retail design, Hulanicki’s work spans fashion illustration, interiors, branding, and visual culture. Her distinctive aesthetic, shaped by Art Deco glamour, theatricality, and vintage romanticism, continues to influence contemporary fashion, design, and popular culture internationally. She lives and works in Miami Beach, Florida.