FASHION STYLIST AND HAT CONNOISEUR ISABELLA BLOW PASSED AWAY

Fashion icon Isabella Blow	Fashion avator Isabella Blow

Isabella Blow not only loved wearing outragous hats, but she was instrumental in hyping the hats (and the career) of Philip Treacy. Rumor has it that the vibrant and often outrageous fashion leader ended her life on her own terms. But it didn’t stop her infamous (and famous) friends from attending her funeral that included an outragious hat atop of her coffin. Although the story is rather maudlin, we wanted to show you a bit about the woman behind the hat.

“London-born Blow was one of the few remaining fashion eccentrics. She often showed up in the front row of runway shows (and fashion events) in a wild designer outfit with a Philip Treacy hat. The hats ranged from a giant lobster chapeau to an elaborately carved boat.”

Renowned for her larger-than-life hats and blood-red lipstick, Blow was credited with discovering designer Alexander McQueen, milliner Philip Treacy and models Stella Tennant and Sophie Dahl.

At the time of her death Blow was an editor-at-large for Tatler magazine. Her editor Geordie Greig told The Daily Telegraph. "Blow was bored by cliches. She didn't do ordinary or dull."

Born in 1958 in London, Isabella Delves Broughton moved to New York to study ancient Chinese art at Columbia University. She left school to move to Texas to work for Guy Laroche. In 1981 she met Anna Wintour and became her assistant at US Vogue. "I don't think she ever did my expenses, but she made life much more interesting," Wintour told The Times newspaper.

According to Treacy, "She had one very unusual quality in the fashion world - she had a heart. She was often misunderstood as a crazy woman with a hat on. But she wasn't. She was intelligent, cultivated, interesting. Her defiance and her unusual perspective on everything was an inspiration to designers and creative people. She had a belief in you as an individual. Whether you were Alexander McQueen, Sophie Dahl, Stella Tennant or me. That belief was incredibly inspiring to young designers.”

Vanity Fair fashion director Michael Roberts (who hired Blow as an assistant at Tatler magazine) said, "Blow was just great from the get-go. To me, she was in the long line of English eccentrics, like Edith Sitwell and Ottoline Morrell. She was marvelous because she comes from that amazing 'White Mischief' background. At Tatler, all her amazing dotty friends were perfect fodder for the magazine."

"When it came to fashion,” Roberts added, “ she was fearless, but when it came to her personal life, she was full of fear.”

Hamish Bowles, Vogue European editor at large, said Blow was "the most incredible discoverer and encourager of talent. She was absolutely an inspiration, not just in the abstract sense of looking so extraordinary and breathtaking, and putting together things in such an unexpected way, but also in opening designers' eyes to historical references. She was someone who consumed fashion at its rawest extreme."

We say goodbye to a woman who seemed to love life – but whose love never wavered far from a great looking hat.

Blow with Philip Treacy	Blow with her husband Detmar
Philip Treacy in his element