Many 1960s designers used Op-Art inspired fabric designs. While true optical art was often stark white and black, other colourways were used. The London boutique Biba, notorious for its murky colour palette, used a brown and black Op-Art textile for this mini-dress. Clothing bought from Biba was famously inexpensive and regular customers were prepared to put up with faults. Barbara Hulanicki, the designer-creator for Biba, remembered in her autobiography From A To Biba:

'Sometimes there were disasters with dyes. The paint just washed out, as the printer had forgotten to give it the final bake that fixes the pigment to the fabric. People were walking around in faded grey Op-Art print dresses. It never occurred to them to return them.'

Barbara Hulanicki and her husband John Fitz Simon set up Biba in 1963 as a mail order boutique. The success of their affordable, youthful designs enabled them to open a small shop in Kensington the following year. They attracted glamorous pop stars, bohemian aristocrats and impoverished students alike. In April 1966, the American news magazine Time published a special edition celebrating ‘London: The Swinging City’. It named Biba as ‘the most in shop for gear’.