London

Read Isabella Blow on Alexander McQueen

Isabella Blow, who died at the age of 49 this week, was one of London’s most colourful and hilarious characters, loved for her wildly flamboyant dress sense and eccentric ways.

Born in London in 1958, Blow moved to New York in 1979 to study Ancient Chinese art at Columbia University. After a brief stint working for Guy Laroche, she met American Vogue’s then fashion director Anna Wintour and the pair hit it off; Wintour later employed her as her assistant. Blow went on to work for British Vogue before becoming the fashion director of the Sunday Times in 1997 and in 2002 she became the fashion director of Tatler. Feature continues

While Issy (as she was known to friends) never designed clothes herself, she had a sharp eye for style and incredible ability to direct dramatic photo shoots whether for edgy magazine The Face or high-end Vogue. Vitally, Blow was queen of spotting new talent, championing Philip Treacy, Alexander McQueen and Sophie Dahl before anyone else knew their names,and often putting up strapped for cash designers in her Elizabeth Street house when they were starting out.

We often spotted Blow in the front row of the most obscure shows in the depths of East End warehouses when the posh editors of Vogue were nowhere to be seen; the sight of one of her striking hats (invariably a Treacy design) gave an element of intrigue and excitement - she picked the new designers she wanted to patronise well.

One of our enduring memories of Blow is in the Alexander McQueen showroom in Paris four years ago. She was standing there in front of the serious suited-up buyers and ashen-faced fashion press in just a bra, a pair of knickers and some skyscraper heels. ‘I’ve got to have that dress,’ she squealed pulling a sculptural creation from the rail – ‘Come on, come on,’ she demanded with a wicked smile as she squeezed her body into it: ‘I live for this dress. I live for it.’

Blow was bursting with humour and brilliant one-liners and loved nothing more than to shock. But her vibrant outfits and outrageous hats were often concealing inner turmoil and masking her true vulnerability. When she gave us this My Favourite Londoner interview in 2005 from her Tatler offices, sitting there bird-like with her signature slick of red lipstick (she’d just designed one in conjunction with MAC called ‘Blow’) and a minuscule body-skimming McQueen dress, she almost had a tear in her eye over an article that had just been published in the Evening Standard by an ex-assistant who had written an expose of Blow and her time working in the Tatler offices. Blow felt betrayed and genuinely hurt by the article which had she assured me was vastly exaggerated.

Anyone who worked with Blow knew she was bonkers (in the best possible way) but she was also bloody good fun, ludicrously opened-minded, insanely creative and refreshingly inclusive in a business that is so rife with snobbery and elitism. Blow had the ability to get on with anyone from the working classes (she adored McQueen’s East-End mum) to aristocracy. But it did help if they were well-dressed and wearing lipstick.