RIP Isabella Blow

Eccentric to the end, she will be missed. I liked this quotation from Anna Wintour, for whom Issy served as PA:

She was not too good at getting to the office before 11am, but then she would arrive dressed as a maharaja or an Edith Sitwell figure. I don't think she ever did my expenses but she made life much more interesting.

Michael Roberts, fashion editor of Vanity Fair, adds:

She was like an exotic bird. Issy was living rather like Diana Vreeland, the legendary fashion editor of the Fifties. She seemed to be trying to translate the styles of the Fifties and Sixties to modern life in a dull office in Hanover Square.

At times it could be difficult for her. Life tramples on people like that.

Here's a piece of advice from the woman herself:

If you don't wear lipstick I can't talk to you. You need to have lips. They are very important for getting men.

Comments

[raker]

She was in the same train carriage as me a couple of years ago - it was a November Monday evening, probably about 8ish, I'd been working with vile clients all day, had missed a train already, and was exhausted, hungry and generally pissed off and washed out. She on the other hand, looked EXACTLY like that photo - mind you, different hat, and a teal-coloured cape with some kind of huge brooch or "shoulder art" thing. This wasn't at Paddington, mind you, this was a tiny little cross-country train from Cheltenham/Gloucester, travelling through the Cotswolds before terminating in Swindon. Bonkers but more than slightly thrilling for a magazine addict who had been reading Vogue since the age of 9...