Legendary Isabella Blow's Life To Be Made Into Movie

The legendary fashion editor Isabella Blow's tragic life-story is being honored with two competing biographies, one of them being made into a movie. Blow, fondly referred to as"Issy", was widely known for her eccentric style and the discovery of models Stella Tennant, Sophie Dahl as well as fashion designer Alexander McQueen and milliner Phillip Treacy.

Speculations that the ‘final straw’ of Issy's growing depression was when Alexander McQueen did not  ask her to accompany him when he sold the brand to Gucci, Blow had been very instrumental in getting the deal off the ground.  Depressed over her waning celebrity status and her cancer diagnosis, Blow began telling friends that she was suicidal. In 2006, Blow attempted suicide with an overdose of sleeping pills. Later that year, Blow again attempted suicide by jumping from the Hammersmith Flyover, which resulted in her breaking both ankles. In 2007, Blow made several more suicide attempts by driving her car into the rear of a truck, by attempting to obtain horse tranquilizers, attempting to drown in a lake and by overdosing while on a beach in India.

On May 6, 2007, during a weekend house party at Hilles, where the guests included Treacy, “Issy” announced that she was going shopping. Instead, she was later discovered collapsed on a bathroom floor by her sister Lavinia and was taken to Gloucestershire Royal Hospital, where Blow told the doctor she had drunk the weedkiller Paraquat. Blow died at the hospital the following day.

Issy worked as assistant to both Anna Wintour and Andre Leon Talley. At Blow's funeral in Wintour's eulogy she said "Blow not only wore fabulous outfits to work, but cleaned her desk with Perrier water and Chanel perfume."

Blow’s aristocratic family was conservative enough to consider university too “common” for girls, and she was among the first women in her family to take up real work.

Though sad, Goldstein Crowe said the movie based on Blow’s life would be enlivened by her wit and sparkling personality. “It would be melancholy, it would be bittersweet,” she said. “The work in fashion, to me, was the least interesting. She just had this great persona that jumped from the page.”

Her legacy is worth celebrating now because Blow’s message was timeless, added Chapman. “She was an incredible visionary, not a conformist, and she saw potential in people. She was so nurturing, so enthusiastic in fashion. She was a believer in fashion and she wasn’t afraid of it.”