THE PROBLEM WITH BIBA

Posh "dolly girl" clip from Peter Whitehead's film 'Tonight Let's All Make Love in London'

T H U R S D A Y,  2 6  J A N

Yuck – the passport photos are terrible.

Wore my yellow bellbottoms and got the train to London. Leant my head out of the window at Motspur Park so Lucy would see me; she did! First we went to Barock in Kensington, which she’s been to before. It’s GORGEOUS. We went down to the basement changing rooms and tried on about five dresses each. We just scampered around shoeless and admired ourselves in the mirrors. Most of the dresses had high waists, with bell sleeves and bloomy skirts, very short. Lucy’s legs are like pins, I wish mine were thinner. I tried on some trouser suits and one in black corduroy was super. The jacket, which was long and flared, looked fantastic with my yellow bellbottoms. I didn’t recognise myself, I looked so mod.

Then we went to Biba in Kensington Church Street. It was packed, it must be the most popular boutique in London. It’s very dark inside with the Rolling Stones blaring away and palm trees and mirrors and old hat stands and ostrich feathers everywhere, giving it a 1920s-ish atmosphere. The clothes are fantastic: lots of dresses in thick crimson velvet. I saw a rabbit fur coat, white, for £10! Gorgeous gorgeous shoes, silver, purple and pink, big cowboy-type hats, fab bloomers, super jewellery, everything. There were some boys in there too.

“Still, despite all this, we don’t like Biba. It’s so ‘in’ it’s actually quite unpleasant”

We went to find Originelle, as advertised in October’s 'Rave.' Well, it was ghastly. There were about four girls in there and you could see they were tittering behind our backs. So out we got out - and what should we see bang opposite but Grade One! Jolly nice inside, and a nicer girl serving and everything. Actually, rather like Young Jaegar. Super wispy bloomy dresses in terribly original designs and incredibly cheap.

At last we got to the Queen’s Skating Rink. It cost six shillings with the boots. There was a crummy boy in charge of the skates – he made feebly sarcastic remarks, I could have hit him. He looked dead bored. He was vile. There were a couple of weedy boys who kept on following us and trying to knock us over. But we had a fab time.