Isabella Blow: A Life in Fashion
Isabella Blow: A Life in Fashion
- ISBN13: 9780312592943
- Condition: New
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An extraordinary biography of Isabella Blow, whose pedigree, wild style, and outrageous antics catapulted her onto the London social scene and made her a fashion icon.
In 2007, the news of Isabella Blow’s suicide at the age of 48 made headlines around the world—but there is more to the story of Isabella than her tragic end. The key supporter and muse of milliner Philip Treacy and designer Alexander McQueen, Blow was truly more than a muse or patron. She was a spark, an electrical impulse that set imaginations racing, an individual who pushed others to create their best work.
Her fascination with clothing began early, as did a willingness to wear things—and say things—that would amuse and shock. She began her fashion career in New York City as assistant to Anna Wintour at Vogue. Over time she became famous for her work, yet it wasn’t enough to assuage her devastating feelings of inadequacy. Still, in her darkest moments, even as she began a series of suicide attempts and prolonged hospital stays, Blow retained her wicked sense of humor, making her friends laugh even as they struggled to help.
Lauren Goldstein Crowe has crafted a superbly entertaining narrative; wrapping the anecdotes of Isabella’s antics around a candid, insightful portrayal of a woman whose thirst for the fantastical ultimately became irreconcilable with life in the real world.
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In the end, what a life…,
Lauren Goldstein Crowe writes a very good book about what seems to be, in the end, the shallow and rather empty life of Isabella Blow. Blow committed suicide in 2007, when she was in her early 50′s, by drinking insect poisoning. A pretty grim and painful self-inflicted ending to her life.
But what was Isabella Blow’s life? The eldest daughter of three born to a noble family. Her parents divorced relatively early in Isabella’s life and she had very little stable home life. Years spent in boarding schools, “Issy” emerged without a goal in life, but with a solid record of having fun. She also had the taste, outsized personality, and funds to become a fashion maven, inspiring designers, photographers, and magazine readers from the 1980′s til her death. She championed such designers as Alexander McQueen and hat-maker Philip Treacy, among others, and made them into fashion icons. Her work as a stylist and writer at magazines like Vogue (both British and American publications), Tatler, and others cemented her “presence” in the world of fashion. Known for her outlandish clothes and hat styles, she seemed to be everywhere – New York, London, and Paris – mixing the world of fashion with that of aristocrats.
But Blow’s personal life was not as glittering as her public one. Married twice, divorced from her first husband and separated at the time of her death from her second one, “Issy” had medical issues – both physical and psychological – that prevented her from having the children she craved. She also had problems with money; depleting her trust before her father’s death and then not receiving the expected large inheritance after his death.
Another reviewer on AmazonUSA wrote an amazingly perceptive review of Crowe’s biography of Isabella Blow, entitled “What If?” Please check it out. That reviewer makes the case – far better than I did – that Blow’s life was a series of “what ifs”. Crowe does a good job explaining Isabella Blow’s life, but this reader was left with the perception of the sad emptiness of it. Maybe that was Crowe’s intent.
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|A fascinating portrait,
I devoured this book. Isabella Blow comes off the page, at once nurturing, kind, and fragile but simultanously bawdy and outrageous. This reads like AbFab meets The Devil Wears Prada. A must-read for anglophiles and anyone interested in fashion.
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|A road of “ifs”,
After her suicide some small thinkers said that fashion had killed Isabella Blow. That was nonsense and this book dose a pretty good job of show the step by step road that led Isabella to a bottle of paraquat. If she’d had normal parents who were protective of her, if someone had been honest about the depression that ran in her family, if she’d been able to attract and not repel the alpha male that she needed instead of the depressive, weak or plain hopeless betas that she ended up with, if she’d had access to a good antidepressant earlier in life, if she could’ve had the child she wanted,things would’ve been different.
The only real flaw of the book is the lack of good photos. The subtitle is “a life in fashion” so I expcted to see some fashion. Instead all we get are home snaps and one or two fashion shots of poor quality. If you want pretty pictures save your money and buy one of the other Blow books.
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