Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Designer who founded the Biba label, launching a high street revolution with affordable, opulent high fashion.
On the island
Eight records
Fitz my husband in our first shop said to the girls, you know, the staff. Now we've got to start with something soft in the morning to get everybody awake. And this was a nice soft beginning to a day.
This just is a part of my childhood with my father, who absolutely loved music. We used to help him wind up the gramophone and put the needle in. It was a very lovely time. It was wonderful.
My father's sister was a concert pianist in Warsaw. And one of the nights that my father was waiting for this BBC programme to come through, must have been at the beginning of the war, and his sister was playing and he was so incredibly upset, I'll never forget, and one of the things she was playing was the politics [Polonaise].
I was at art school then. I thought that was so funny because it was banned and the only place you could listen to this was in a wicked, wicked coffee bar where you drank very wicked cappuccinos. Can you imagine this? And that was the only place that they would play this amazing music.
We we felt that Marlena Dietrich would have been the perfect person to launch the Rainbow Room in the new Beaver store. And it was very important to have the right performer on the stage because we had a stage and we built this wonderful dressing room.
The Girl from IpanemaFavourite
Oh, this is when life really started. ... because it was so important about going to Brazil because of this wonderful freedom, the beach and which was yet another story.
Whenever we did a hotel for Chris and I did Eleven and of course Bob Marley was always playing everywhere.
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:31What do you make of High Street fashion today?
Well, it moves very fast. ... You have to keep them coming back. And you've got to be switched in to what women really want.
Presenter asks
2:47Apart from the weather in Miami, why have you chosen to base your life there now?
After Bebo [Biba] closed, we were open to anything and Ronnie Wood from Rolling Stone said, Oh, I'm opening a club in Miami Beach. Would you like to come for six months and design the beach club? ... Then six months turned into two years and we loved it there because it was very funky and very sixties. ... And we just stayed on and on.
Presenter asks
8:23Can you remember the early years at home [in Palestine]?
Just this wonderful glow of love those two people had. ... He adored her and she adored him and you you were almost felt that you were intruding on this wonderful ... Mystic thing, almost to the point of boredom.
Presenter asks
The keepsakes
The luxury
Can you remember the last time that you saw [your father] alive?
Oh God, yes, never forget. There was a knock on the door, a bang on the door, and my father got up and went to the front door ... And he opened the door and there was a lot of talking and ... he got dressed very quickly. ... And I was sleeping with Beatrice, and he came past and he said, Bye-bye. Goodbye. ... And I sort of never said goodbye to him.
Presenter asks
16:12How much was [your mother] ever able to recover from [her grief], do you think?
She recovered, but my aunt was the sort of paternal figure. She looked after us, and my mother sort of was almost a child. She was lovely. She was just a marvellous mother.
Presenter asks
27:25Where did you find the confidence to do all of this [interior design]?
My gosh, do you learn very fast because you pretend you know. ... I worked for Ronnie first and then I met Chris. He said, Come and do a corridor for me in the Marlin. And I went, Really? Okay, I'll do a corridor.
“I don't see why butter can't be glamorous. You know, I don't see why you can't buy it in a glamorous setting. I was completely into films. That was my only sort of inspiration. And I was floating around in a technicolor film all the time.”
“It was horrific because it was so unexpected. ... to anybody who's had a huge loss where their life is completely it's like half of you is gone. On the fifth year, suddenly you wake up one day and say, Okay, now I'm off on my own.”
“My whole thing has always been the name, to to make him proud of the name.”