The inspiration of Biba: a Brighton Museum and City College collaboration

The Royal Pavilion and Museums and City College Brighton and Hove have collaborated on an Enterprise and Innovation Project inspired by the Biba fashion brand. Biba, and the work of its founder, will be the subject of our Biba and Beyond: Barbara Hulanicki exhibition opening in Brighton Museum this September. Tomorrow, a sale of craft items created by the students will be held at City College.

Jane Campling of City College describes how the students incorporated the inspiration of Biba into their work.

The Sale: An Overview of the Enterprise and Innovation Project

Brighton Museum invited Level 1, 2 and 3 Diploma Art and Design students to make artwork in response to a forthcoming exhibition that they will be launching in September 2012, showcasing the Biba brand and its founder, Barbara Hulanicki. Biba started as a mail order company in Brighton in the early 1960s, later opening stores, the first of which was on Queens Road, Brighton and then High Street Kensington, London.  Barbara Hulaniki was born in Poland but lived in Brighton, studying Fashion Illustration at Brighton University.

The Diploma Art and Design students had the opportunity to examine the original Biba products on a behind-the-scenes tour of the collection, looking at clothing, make up and advertising, guided by the curator of the exhibition.  Back in the studio, students carried out further research into Hulaniki and the inspiration behind the Biba brand which included social and political influences surrounding this iconic fashion revolution.

Students opted to follow either a Fashion or a Graphics brief, using their research to create artwork inspired by Biba but with a contemporary twist. Students following the fashion brief were presented with a plain white T shirt (symbolic of the fashion staple of today) and experimented with surface manipulation techniques inspired by Biba. Each student designed and created a bespoke T shirt and applied their most successful techniques synonymous of their own underlying research messages.  Final fashion pieces were modeled and photographed in 1960s fashion shoot style.

The Graphics brief involved students designing logos to represent contemporary youth cultures – skaters, goths, scene kids, indie kids and emos. These initial motifs were then developed to create dynamic patterns, using colours from the Biba palette of plums, ochres and olive greens. They were then screen printed, with some products embellished with embroidery.

The students worked in ‘design & entrepreneur teams’ to learn how to take their ideas from an initial design through to a marketable product. They explored different ideas for the company name, settling on “Marka”; this means ‘brand’ in Polish, making reference to Barbara Hulanicki’s roots and also their own hand crafted mark-making throughout the project. They carried out market research and reviewed pricing: developing ideas for how they could add value to the products through packaging – something that was very important to BIBA in the 60s. The products have been designed with the Biba philosophy in mind – fun, youthful and affordable.

Jane Campling
Curriculum Team Leader Art and Design
City College Brighton and Hove

Personality of the Month – Dorothy Stringer (1894-1977)

On 19 December 1968, Dorothy Stringer was granted Freedom of the Borough of Brighton. She was only the second woman to have been honoured in this way but, given her record of service to the town, it must have come as no surprise. Best known for her contribution to education, Stringer was a former Mayor, Alderman and senior council member who was awarded an OBE in 1960. In 1969, when she was in her mid-seventies, she still served on countless committees.

Stringer was born in 1894 into a Brighton family that was active in public life. Her father Joseph was an Alderman, her mother Emma was a member of the Board of Guardians and her cousin, Herbert Galliers, was Mayor of Brighton in 1929. She joined the Council’s Education Committee in 1923 and served on it for an incredible 50 years. During this time, she became the committee’s first female chair and, in 1955, a new secondary school was named after her.

As a young woman, Stringer was a talented singer and pianist, and a member of St Bartholomew’s Church Choir. During the First World War, she is said to have taken part in performances put on to entertain wounded soldiers who were being cared for in Brighton’s military hospitals, including the Royal Pavilion.

She was first elected to Brighton Council in 1933 and was made the town’s Mayor in 1952. Two scrapbooks of newspaper cuttings, invitations and other ephemera documenting her mayoral year are held at Brighton History Centre, and these show just how involved she was in the life of the town. From the opening of local businesses to visits to schools, sporting events, conferences and exhibitions, Dorothy Stringer seems to have been an ever-present figure.

Going to balls, banquets and concerts may have been part of the job but, evidently, Stringer also concerned herself with the welfare of vulnerable people, including children and the elderly. At the Mayoral Banquet, which was held at the Royal Pavilion, she made this clear,  promising to, ‘join in the laughter and joy of children and of youth, give a little happiness to the old folk, have courage when the need arises and try to make the right decisions.’

She also paid tribute to the women of Brighton, those who had served in the war, and those who were at home, ‘doing noble work’. At the end of her year of office, fellow councillor Stanley Deason had this to say:  ‘If you have done nothing else, you have made it plain that a woman of ability and integrity can take her place with men and do what they do, and you have done it magnificently. You have performed a service to women, the council and the town.’

Dorothy Stringer continued her work until 1974. She died in 1977 and is buried in Brighton’s Extra Mural Cemetery.

Kate Elms, Brighton History Centre

Back to School?

September means the start of a new school year and, as ever, the newspapers are full of stories related to education.

Students at the Municpal Schools for Boys and Girls, based in Pelham Street and York Place, taken from school magazines published in 1911-12

Students at the Municpal Schools for Boys and Girls, based in Pelham Street and York Place, taken from school magazines published in 1911-12

A hundred years ago this month, however, journalists were talking not just about exam results, or who should be taught what, but about pupils up and down the country closing their books and going on strike. It seems that Brighton and Hove were not affected by this extraordinary wave of school strikes – during which pupils demanded free pencils, shorter hours and an end to corporal punishment – but this did not stop the local press taking issue with the strikers.

Brighton Gazette on 13 Sept 1911

According to the Brighton Gazette,

‘The latest news from the strike area is that the revolt has collapsed and that the strikers, on returning to their classrooms, received very conclusive proof that the use of the cane was still in operation.’ The report went on to conclude, ‘The vision of a national strike of schoolboys is a fearsome one indeed…So, all things considered, it is just as well that the schoolmaster still wields an instrument of repression.’

Brighton Gazette, Sat September 30 1911

On a lighter note, later that month the same paper highlighted what was described as ‘an epidemic of marriage…among the lady teachers under the Brighton and Preston Education Authority.’ Citing the coronation of George V as one reason for this wedding fever, the report goes on to say: ‘Though everyone recognises their intellectual qualities, there is no reason to suppose that lady teachers have enjoyed a monopoly of the attention of the Brighton gallants, who must be congratulated on having falsified an impression that they were fighting shy of the nuptial bliss or the responsibilities of conjugal life.’

Kate Elms, Brighton History Centre