Piece of Furniture...Love Seat

When I think about my own future home (this thoughts usually go like this; “dear God, if you exist, you are my witness I deserve apartment at Notting Hill. With staircase. I don’t need anything too big. Something small. Well not too small. Think of Bridget Jones’s apartment! Please?!”) and furniture in it, Ercol loveseat will have the special spotlight in that imaginary place. This classic piece of furniture would fit perfectly into dining space of modern girlie apartment.The iconic love seat was designed in 1955 by Ercol founder Lucian Ercolani who based his range on British classic designs. Therefore loveseat was based on a double Windsor chair but lightened with pale timbers and slender tapered legs.
Today this gorgeous bench is hand crafted in Ercol’s Buckinghamshire factory and costs £700. Also version of Loveseat is available at The White Company (on the photograph) for the similar price and in natural and white tone. These versions are much more reasonable than vintage ones which are more pricier. It is same with reissue of loveseat that Ercol did in collaboration with designer Margaret Howell.

Love seat is still my imaginary perfect piece of furniture but well, who knows, maybe one day misslikey would be written from Ercol love seat. Isn’t that just brilliant dream?

Biba and Beyond

I know, we don’t have usually little heart-to-heart here on misslikey about exhibitions or events, but when it comes to Biba, hardly any of the rules could apply. In fact, I believe that it would be sin not the mention that currently there is great fashion exhibition at Brighton Museum & Art Gallery that celebrates all things Biba and Beyond. The exhibition's aim is not just to tell a story about Biba, clothes, lifestyle, but to cover everything connected to this revolutionary brand and its and far reaching influence. Through illustrations, film, fashion, music, photography, ephemera and memories of visitors, intention is also to offer retrospective of Barbara Hulanicki’s fashion career, her childhood and views on fashion.

Barbara came to Brighton (“sleepy town in these days”, she tells) in 1948, where she attended Brighton Art College. In 1955 Young Hulanicki won beachwear design competition held by London Evening Standard. She left college during second year and started to work as freelance fashion illustrators for various fashion publications, including Tatler and Vogue. She worked also in London office of Women’s Wear Daily. With her partner and husband Stephan Fritz-Simon Barbara started small mail-order business. The pink gingham dress, offered in Daily Mail was the item that prompted the opening of the first Biba shop in Kensington in 1964.