Biba's "Bohemian Rhapsody" Moment

Freddie meets Mary...and her coat

I don't usually talk in movies, but there was a point in "Bohemian Rhapsody" where I couldn't help it.

The pretty blond girl Freddie Mercury is flirting with tells him her fur-collared coat “is from Biba." And her friend follows with, "She works there."

I exclaimed out loud, "Biba!" That is a word to trigger memories, flashbacks and regrets (as in I shouldn't have given those clothes away). Biba was a store of legend never to be equaled. I've written about it here:

https://allwaysinfashion.blogspot.com/2011/11/bit-of-biba.html

Freddie goes to look for the pretty girl, who is Mary Austin, the woman who became his great love and lifelong friend. As this is supposed to be 1970, that would be Biba on London's Kensington High Street. This was the brand's third store, which had previously been a carpet showroom.

Interior of an early Biba

Freddie has found Mary, the sales associate, near a display of women's pants. He innocently asks if she has the pants in his size. She proceeds to give him a mod makeover with a velvet jacket and long scarf.

Freddie after his Biba makeover

Increasingly more and more successful, in 1973 Biba took over the nearby former Derry & Toms department store, a 7-story Art Deco pile complete with roof garden. Biba refitted it in never-to-be-equaled Deco grandeur, rivaling any Hollywood set. Alas, through a mix of bad management and over-expansion—they were selling almost everything including baked beans— Biba closed for good in 1975.

Interior of  the last Biba

 
The reference to Biba will surely pass quickly over most viewers. I do always wonder when Hollywood gets its facts wrong—Mary actually worked in Biba public relations, not on the sales floor—what other bits of the "true story" may not all be true. And "Bohemian Rhapsody" has a few of those. But it's a good film, with great music, and—well—a little bit of Biba.

The real Mary and Freddie in later years

 

R.I.P. Glamour Magazine

Issue #1

Word has come down from on high at Conde Nast that Glamour Magazine will no longer publish in print. The January 2019 edition will be its last. Glamour will not quite have reached its 80th birthday.

Glamour was first published as "Glamour of Hollywood" in April, 1939. It soon stopped concentrating on movie stars and directed itself to "the girl with a job". That intensified after Glamour's merge with Charm magazine ("for women who work") in 1957.

Glamour promoted fashion and beauty, work and relationships in roughly that order. It became a bible for many young women; I was one of them. I started reading Glamour in 1956 when I was 13 and never missed an issue until I was unceremoniously let go in 1989.

But I digress.

Glamour was the road map for my future life. I knew I would leave Cleveland and move to New York City. I wanted to be a graphic designer, but my goal was not to be in publishing. As fate would have it (great expression) I ended up working in the design department of Glamour for 24 years, eventually becoming assistant art director.

My first issue: July 1965

I've written extensively about Glamour, especially my early days when the world of fashion was such a wonder. Although I actually found later jobs more fulfilling, Glamour is the one I go back to over and over. To have been a part of something that meant so much to so many...

To this day, when I tell people I worked for Glamour, there are nods of recognition and ooohs in wonderment. That magazine was important to almost four generations of women. How much we have changed in those 80 years!

The current editor, aiming to reach the millennials whose interest in fashion is only as a rebellious form of self expression, believes digital publishing is the way to go. The big difference is we read Glamour in hopes of becoming our best selves. This attempt smacks of hoping millennials will recognize themselves.

The past year of Glamour on the newsstands has been sad and embarrassing. I cringed when I saw a copy at the checkout counter. I'm almost glad it won't be there anymore. 

Life's Lost Little Luxuries # 10: Department Store Deliveries

 
"...and send it please."

That would be my mother at the counter of Higbee's or Halle Bros. in downtown Cleveland. The time would be late 1940s into the '50s, before shopping centers and malls, when "shopping" meant going downtown with a list to the big department stores.

If the list were long and/or the packages big you wouldn't want to haul them around all day, especially if you were with an 8-year-old, more hindrance than help. It was much easier to "send it please" and have the boxes show up a day or two later at your doorstep. PS If you were my mother, you were almost always home—in the suburbs, no car, with a house and family to take care of.

I can clearly see those delivery vans in my mind's eye—green like their boxes for Halle's, brown with discreet gold lettering for Higbee's. I imagine May Company and Taylor's had trucks too, but the good stuff came from Halle's or Higbee's.

Outside Halle Bros. 1940

I still get pretty excited when UPS or Fedx pulls onto the street, a little less so for the postal van. But a department store delivery was a "welcome home" to what you had carefully chosen just a few days before.

I don't remember when the parade stopped. We moved to an apartment. My mother went back to work—downtown. There were now shopping centers, soon to be malls. One-stop shopping and load it in your car. I started shopping for myself and wanted it THEN.

It is ironic that Sears, which began as a mail-order company, recently closed locations and lowered expectations because it couldn't compete with home delivery like Amazon. What no one seems to mention is we have even become disinclined to venture away from our keyboards and actually visit the store.

The thrill is gone, along with boxes, tissue, paper tape, tea rooms and delivery vans.