A great Flick and two cakes!

Yesterday, the skies opened up again - changed all our outdoor plans, so a decision had to be made to not only get a walk in, but also to occupy some of this day. I googled the Cinema at the Robina Town Centre, most of the movies were for kids, but I found one, which we had seen the shorts on a couple of weeks ago, 10.30 am start, sounded great. Got to the mall, walked and walked with an occasional wander into a few of the stores, then up to the Cinema, found that this was a special showing for the Cinema Club (Seniors) which we are members of, and we "oldies" were treated to complimentary tea, coffee, scones and chocolate covered strawberries. This movie doesn't really start in Oz till 28th October. "Made in Dagenham" tells the story of a protest which snowballed and led to a revolution in equal pay for women. The female staff who worked long hours in poor conditions at the Ford Motor Company plant in Dagenham were outraged at being reclassified as "unskilled" in 1968. The group of 187 sewing machinists (they made the leather seat covers for zephyrs and cortinas) went on strike for equal pay with men and took on not only the company, but their Union and the government to highlight this injustice. This event was instrumental in the lead up to the 1970 Equal Pay act in the UK.

We thoroughly enjoyed this movie - certainly not everyone's cuppa, but we did like it - for all kinds of different reasons!

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Above - On route to Westminster and their meeting with Senior Labour Politician, - in Harold Wilson's days - Barbara Castle

The Machinist Leader, Rita, (in her borrowed Biba Dress) with Barbara Castle.

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The referral to BIBA fashions took me right back in time. just a little bit of my work history here. Biba commenced in London in May 1964, via the creative founders Barbara Hulanicki and her husband Stephen Fitz-Simon . Below is their first shop in September '64 in Abingdon Road, Kensington, with its painted black windows, not allowing the store's interior to receive any sunlight, which was vital for the Biba's art nouveau atmosphere..

The BIBA logo played a crucial part in Biba's success, the logo was gold and black which reflected the growing taste in youth for art deco, it was designed by Antony Little.

The BIBA logo was customized in various ways to be appropriate for all the different products. BIBA was the first to set a standard for brand marketing and the first high street store to create a look for itself, its interior layout was always innovative and was set to enhance the clothes rather than just to hold them.

BIBA never exhibited anything in shop windows, believing instead that people would be intrigued and seduced to enter the shop by their captivating store "interior" which could be seen from the outside.

They opened at other addresses with the largest (and final) in 1974 being the 7 story Derry and Toms Department Store, which immediately attracted up to one million customers weekly, making it one of the most visited tourist attractions in London. The creative interior of this store was quite unbelievable - it was a huge responsibility in terms of expense and organisation. No one was aware of how serious the financial difficulties were going to be, and they indeed proved too much for the new entrepreneurs; as a result Dorothy Perkins Fashion Stores and Dennis Day bought 75% of BIBA.

My interest is that during this period (late '74 and '75) I was the Admin Assistant to the Managing Director of Dorothy Perkins, and it was pretty obvious, though most confidential that things were not going to work - there were disagreements with the Board over creative control, Barbara Hulanicki left the company and shortly afterwards BIBA was closed. The Dorothy Perkins shareholder decided that the Derry and Toms building that housed BIBA was worth more than the ailing business itself. I lasted in this highly political and quite disturbing secretive atmosphere for all of the 9 months it took, couldn't wait to get out of that situation, it was very sad to see such creativity lose its way and be gobbled up by the uncreative big boys!

The legacy is that a musical play called "Biba: the Musical" based on the story of Hulanicki and the original company is currently in the works! Wouldn't I love to see that.

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MANY MORE CANDLES

On Monday eve, Ash celebrated with 2 sparkling birthday cakes - another very nice evening.