Suzi Menkes calls her “one of the most imaginative, inventive and intelligent forces in fashion – and in her iconic self a work of art.” No wonder, Isabella Blow was such an influential person in fashion world. She passed away on Monday May 7 at her home in England.
Credited with discovering milliner, Philip Treacy, as well as Alexander McQueen and Hussein Chalayan, her influence on the fashion can’t be measured but will always be and remembered for the personality she was.
While searching YouTube for something to post here I could only find a video with German voiceovers . It features Philip Treacy and Isabella presenting a collection of his hats in Düsseldorf, Germany.
(Photo from Style.com – Isabella is wearing McQueen and Treacy designs)
Isabella Blow was a true British eccentric in the mould of Vita Sackville West and Dame Edith Sitwell. Amid a life of family tragedy and scandal ( atwo year old brother died in swimming accident, her mother left shaking her and her sisters’ hands, her father left Isabella with a paltry 5,000 pounds from his 6-7 m pound estate) she rose to become an individualistic style icon and fashion original and a great champion of young talent including her perennial fashion collaborator milliner Philip Treacy, Alexander McQueen (who let her down when he moved to the Gucci group, a deal Isabella helped broker, but didn’t take Isabella along for the ride); Hussein Chalyan, Julien Macdonald, Stella Tenant,Honor Fraser, Sophie Dahl who Isabella discovered crying on the street after Sophie had fought with her mother, and marched her in for a fashion booking at a time when stick thin model were en vogue.
Isabella came from the establishment but she was a punk at heart. Her love was talent, rather than money. Her ethos was beauty and elegance and she was planning a series of “impossible fashion stories” at Tatler which only she could envision and bring into fruition, at the time of her death from a possible suicide from swallowing a weedkiller that her father-in-law had also taken and died from.
Rest In Peace Isabella.