Isabella Blow
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Isabella Blow (née Isabella Delves Broughton, 19 November 1958—) is a British magazine editor and international style icon. The muse of hat designer Philip Treacy, she is credited with discovering models Stella Tennant and Sophie Dahl.
A daughter of Sir Evelyn Delves Broughton and his second wife, the former Helen Shore, she was born in London in 1958. Blow recalls as a child her fondest memory "trying on my mother's pink hat ... there's a photo of me in it as a child and I look as happy as anything to be wearing it."[citation needed] She studied A-levels at Heathfield School, after which she enrolled at secretarial college, then taking odd jobs.
Blow moved to New York, USA, in 1979 to study Ancient Chinese Art at Columbia University, sharing a flat with the actress Catherine Oxenberg. A year later she moved to Texas and worked for Guy Laroche. In 1981, she married her first husband, Nicholas Taylor (divorced 1983), and was introduced and became friends with then fashion director of the US edition of Vogue, Anna Wintour. She was hired initially as Wintour's assistant, It was not long before she was assisting Andre Leon Talley, now US Vogue's editor at large. In the late 1980s, she befriended Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat, aside from the avant-garde lifestyle, she was a serious talent herself.
In 1986, she returned to London and worked for Michael Roberts, then Fashion Director of Tatler and the Sunday Times Style magazine. In 1989, she married Detmar Blow. Philip Treacy designed her wedding head dress and a famous fashion allegiance was struck. Blow established Treacy in her mother-in-law's basement flat, where he worked on his collections for two years.
In 1993, she worked with the photographer Steven Meisel producing the Babes in London shoot featuring Plum Sykes, Bella Freud and Honor Fraser. Blow has a natural sense of style and has a good feeling for future directions. She purchased Alexander McQueen's entire graduate collection. Spotting Sophie Dahl while she argued with her mother, describing her as "a blow up doll with brains", she launched the model's career.[citation needed]
Today she is the fashion director of Tatler and consults for DuPont Lycra, Lacoste and Swarovski. In 2002, she became the subject of an exhibiton entitled When Philip met Isabella, featuring sketches and photographs of her wearing his hat designs. There is a book of the same title. In the winter of 2005 the exhibition went to Dublin, Ireland, and was sufficiently successful that it was extended into April 2006. In 2005 she starred in a project by artist Matthieu Laurette commissioned and produced by Frieze Projects 2005 entitled "WHAT DO THEY WEAR AT FRIEZE ART FAIR?" consisting of daily guided tours of Frieze Art Fair led by Blow and fellow international fashion experts Peter Saville, Kira Joliffe, Bay Garnett.
Blow appears, wearing a Treacy hat, in the 2004 Wes Anderson film, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.
Her husband, Detmar, says that she has long suffered from depression[citation needed] and it may be that this contributed to a fall which resulted in serious injuries.[1] The Tatler is looking forward to her return to work.[citation needed]
