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A Fashion Galore! - Welcome to the wonderful world of Isabella Blow.

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Somerset House is currently showing an exhibition about the extraordinary life of Isabella Blow, a woman who performed a striptease at Andy Warhol's funeral to the live music of the Velvet Underground, not to draw attention to herself, but because she knew he would have appreciated it.

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Isabella Blow worked as a fashion editor for magazines such as Vogue, Tatler and the Sunday Times Style Magazine but is most famous for spotting McQueen’s wonderful tailoring skills from his Central Saint Martins graduate collection and nurturing his career from that day onwards. She purchased his entire collection for £5,000, paying it off in weekly £100 chunks. They developed a life-long relationship after this which was as nurturing and creative as it was truly explosive. She also discovered and kick started the careers of models Sophie Dahl and Stella Tennant.


Isabella is also infamous for her avant-garde hat wearing which came as a result of her position as life-long collaborator and muse to hat designer Phillip Treacy. When speaking about her fabulous hats she states...


"(I wear them) to keep everyone away from me. They say, Oh, can I kiss you? I say, No, thank you very much. That's why I've worn the hat. Goodbye. I don't want to be kissed by all and sundry. I want to be kissed by the people I love"

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She came from aristocratic, wealthy lineage peppered with drama, death and eccentricity - her grandfather was trialled for the murder of his wife's love who was shot in the head, her grandmother sailed the world and once unknowingly ate human flesh and her little brother drowned in the family swimming pool aged 2.


She was known as witty, filthy, outspoken and rebellious. Her motto was “Haud muto factum” or "Nothing happens by being mute"
She thought her own face was ugly, yet insisted on wearing lipstick every day and insisting her assistants did too and held no qualms over popping out a nipple for a Tatler magazine photoshoot after complaining no nipples had ever been shown in the pages of the high society magazine.

 

There was no such thing as dressing down in Isabella's world. At home she would be in a cocktail dress and Blahnik heels. Even when hospitalised, she would forgo the hospital gown, and chose to wear a scratchy 30s silver lamé dress on the day she passed away.

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It was her discoveries which went on to be famous and rich, more so than Isabella herself who continued to struggle with the kind of depression which comes from extreme creativity and not knowing where the line between reality and fantasy clearly lies.

Blow, after learning she had ovarian cancer and witnessing the deflation of her career when McQueen moved to Gucci without her attempted to commit suicide several times before succeeding after drinking weedkiller in 2007. She lived a colourful life in which illness and old age were simply not an acceptable option and leaves a creative legacy behind her.

Her wardrobe was auctioned off at Christies in 2010 but was brought to a swift end when Blow's lifelong friend Daphne Guinness bought the entire lot. It is this collection which is being shown at Somerset House and includes 90 McQueen dresses and 50 Treacy hats.

 

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A Fashion Galore! runs at Somerset House until March 2nd.

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