Now that a new biopic is in the works about the eccentric editor and talent scout who shaped British fashion history, discovered Alexander McQueen and became synonymous with extravagant headpieces, we revisit some of her most iconic looks.
Celebrated for her fearless personal style and her instinct to spot brilliance, Isabella Blow (1958–2007) transformed the careers of designers and models who defined the 1990s. After a formative period in New York in the early 1980s, assisting Anna Wintour at Vogue and working with André Leon Talley at Interview Magazine, she returned to London in 1986 to join Vogue UK. She later became fashion director at The Sunday Times Style and Tatler, cementing her reputation as muse and mentor.
She was the first to champion Alexander McQueen, buying his entire graduation collection, and elevated Philip Treacy, whose sculptural hats became her signature. She also discovered Sophie Dahl and Stella Tennant, challenging fashion’s narrow ideals of beauty. For Blow, style was theatre, provocation and poetry — a radical self-stylisation that blurred the line between editor and performer.
Her audacious life is now being brought to the screen in The Queen of Fashion, directed by Alex Marx and starring Andrea Riseborough as Blow. With costumes sourced largely from her archive, preserved by Daphne Guinness, the film promises to capture both her brilliance and fragility, reaffirming her place in fashion’s cultural history.
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