Lately I joined a Facebook group called 'I miss Glasgow'. I have to face the reality, I DO miss Glasgow. Most of my friends are now about to leave the crazy city too after we were told last November that we were going to lose our jobs. It's not as dramatic as it sounds because we were all foreigners and we all know we can land back on the relative 'safety net' of our respective countries.

Still, it feels like our good times came to an end and that somehow we've been torn apart. I remember when I first went to Glasgow a few weeks after my arrival (I was living by the seaside some 40km off Glasgow) it looked nothing like any other European cities I had travelled. Every street was straight, everything was angular and square. I would often get lost at first because the streets could easily be mixed up. I fell in love with the architecture. Some buildings look Amsterdamian, some others Venetian, some even Parisian and Art Deco is everywhere in high proportion.

I started to take a lot of pictures of the Art Deco buildings (or what looked like it as I'm not an expert) in the idea I could convince someone at the Lighthouse (an architecture and design venue in the city centre) to organize an exhibition about Art Deco in Glasgow. But I dropped the idea because I lacked of time and had no clue whether this was naive or sensible.



The Rogano restaurant in Exchange place, created in 1935




Building at the intersection of Queen St and Ingram st (the Glaswegian avenue Montaigne)



The Watt Bros building takes up 3 angles in Sauchiehall st, Hope street and Bath st. My favourite granny's shop, one of the best stores in Glasgow, a real maze with different uneven levels and stairs.



The Watt Brothers lift at the 'ground floor', beautiful



Dunnes Building at the intersection of Sauchiehall st and Cambridge st



The ABC venue on Sauchiehall st, was the first cinema in Glasgow



Stunning building in Gordon st



My Art Deco inspired window display during the time I was working at the charity shop.

Also I learned yesterday that November Reels is currently post-producing a documentary film about Barbara Hulanicki and Biba. Fantastic news!!



Picture copyright of November Reels http://www.november-reels.com/

I'm not going to go through Biba's history (that's the downside of Internet, you can find that by yourself) but oh I wish it never closed down. It was the ultimate retail fantasy brought to life. The highest achievement of one clever thinking head named Barbara Hulanicki. Truly iconic because it was like nothing else before and she was extremely ahead of her times in terms of retail and shopping. There was a gap and she filled it. It's purely intensely inspirational.

Let's start with the thinkinghead's biography:



Barbara Hulanicki goes in very deep details about the whole Biba's adventure. It's quite amazing how simple and easy it appeared to start a retail in the 60's. Then came the limitations, the capital one needs to expand, the misfortunate associations...



The Biba Experience, covers the whole Biba story from the small shop in Abingdon road til the Big Biba department store. Beautiful pictures



Welcome to Big Biba, the most beautiful store in the world. And damn it was. Focus on the very last Biba store in all its magnificent glamour.

Some more pics that reflects the whole Biba world:









I'm not the only one to think that Barbara Hulanicki should bring the brand back to life. She's sitting on a real hidden gem. It's probably tricky to do but it WOULD work. Instead and unfortunately, some greedy suits -again- made an attempt to get the brand back last year but they got it completely wrong! The prices are out of range for most people for not even really inventive designs. It goes against everything Biba was: A highstreet brand! Google it today, the clothes are almost impossible to find online, Style.com does not even have the current collections. The original designer (Bella Freud) quit it. What is this nonsense all about?

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