Martin Pel – författare

Biba dominated London fashion from the mid-1960s, defining the dress and outlook of a generation. Celebrating the sixtieth anniversary of the opening of the first Biba boutique, this book takes a revealing look at Biba through the words and images of the people who were intimately involved with the company and its phenomenal success.  Established in 1963 as Biba Postal Boutique—a small mail-order company selling inexpensive clothing for women and children—by 1973 Biba was a seven-story department store on London’s Kensington High Street. Customers could fill their wardrobe and furnish their home with Biba products; Biba had become the world’s first lifestyle label. Shoppers could buy a tin of Biba baked beans, take tea on Europe’s largest roof garden, or watch live music performances by the New York Dolls, Iggy Pop, and Liberace in the 500-seat Rainbow Room.  Created by Barbara Hulanicki and her husband, Stephen Fitz-Simon, Biba was made in the image of its staff and customers. Selling up-to-the-minute and affordable clothing, Biba appealed to teenagers and young women of the postwar generation, becoming the fashion destination of the Swinging Sixties and Seventies. Biba was the place to see and to be seen; its doors were open to everyone, from the Rolling Stones, Marianne Faithfull, and Twiggy to David Bowie and Freddie Mercury.  Biba: The Fashion Brand That Defined A Generation includes photographs by Helmut Newton, Sarah Moon, and Duffy, as well as never-before-seen ephemera from Hulanicki’s personal archive. Interviews with the people closest to Biba bring these images and objects to life, while recollections and anecdotes from Hulanicki herself shine a new light on the very personal nature of Biba as a business.

The first major biography to examine the life and career of Martin Battersby (1914-1982), a forgotten yet significant artist of the twentieth centuryA polymath whose career covered numerous disciplines, Martin Battersby worked in many roles including theatre designer, muralist and fine artist, textile and costume designer, interior decorator, and collector and connoisseur of the decorative arts. This book follows his life as the son of a North London pawnbroker who went on to work with many tastemakers of the time including Rex Whistler, Bunny Roger, Arthur Jeffress, Lotte Reiniger, and Cecil Beaton. With limited training and education, Battersby built his own career as an artist, creating artworks for Paul Mellon, Evelyn Waugh, Princess Radziwill and Lady Diana Cooper. By the mid-twentieth century he was recognised as Britain's most distinguished trompe l'oeil artist.Drawing from scrapbooks kept throughout the artist's life, Martin Pel seeks to reinstate Battersby and his contributions to the arts. Living as a young queer man in the twentieth century, he sought refuge through the art of the past, rejecting the contemporary artistic world that valued brutality over humanity. He challenged the rise of Modernism and the masculine and visceral artworks of the time through his pursuit of beauty with highly decorative art in imitation of the past masters. In his last years, Battersby immersed himself in the queer leather scenes of London and New York and continued to challenge the art world by producing homo-erotic work. He died at 68, leaving behind a legacy within the decorative arts and becoming a pioneer of queer art and aesthetics.