Biba's golden anniversary

It's the fiftieth anniversary of Biba, the fashion label and shop founded by Barbara Hulanicki in 1964.

When I first started approaching publishers, at the beginning of this century, with the idea for a book on Biba, the dismissive response was: Who cares about a shop in West London that closed thirty years ago?

I'd already done enough research to know that there was a good answer to that question, that there were thousands of people who'd bought into the Biba aesthetic in the 1960s and '70s who still felt bereft by its abrupt closing in 1975 and who still cherished their memories. Many of them still had their treasured pieces, many still found themselves adopting Biba colour schemes when they decorated their homes.

When we did eventually publish the book ten years ago, however, what took me by surprise was the interest shown by younger people, by those who weren't even born when Biba existed. Sometimes this was because the imagery and even the clothes had been passed down from mother to daughter. But sometimes it was because the story was so perfect and so captivating.

Starting as a tiny boutique in an unfashionable part of London, Biba grew within a decade to become a fully fledged department-store, without ever losing sight of its ethos and its style. That was determined solely by Barbara Hulanicki. In an era before focus groups and market research, Biba represented the individualist creativity of the Sixties. Hulanicki trusted her own instincts and taste, assumed that others would want to join her.

As Biba expanded, so did her vision. Biba pioneered the concept of lifestyle, expanding from fashion out into home decoration, furnishing, household goods, food - every item personally approved by Hulanicki, the whole thing stamped with a single concept of making style available and affordable to anyone who wanted to participate. And it was all sold in an environment that matched the fantasy: this was the theatre of retail.

At the peak of the dream, there were plans for a Biba car and a Biba cinema. Sadly those didn't materialise, lost in the property crash that hit Britain in 1974-75.

The sudden closure was heart-breaking for many, including Hulanicki herself, but it ensured the survival of the legend. There was no steady decline, no sliding into dated irrelevance. One moment it was there - a seven-storey celebration of style and decadence; the next, it was gone forever. It lived fast and it died young. Just like the Sixties.

Its legacy is the example it left of an alternative approach to business, where the emphasis was on the creative rather than the corporate. In an increasingly homogenised world, such individualism remains inspiring. Even to those who weren't there at the time.