The Blow Show

She was the muse and fashion stylist who inspired a generation of British designers, now a new exhibition is to chronicle the life - and wardrobe - of Isabella Blow, from her childhood at her family's estate in Cheshire to her suicide in 2007.

The show will feature more than 100 items of clothing and accessories owned by Blow, who is credited with discovering Sophie Dahl and the late Alexander McQueen.  The collection includes pieces by McQueen as well as Blow's wedding headdress, designed by milliner Philip Treacy while he was a student at The Royal College of Art.

They were bought by Daphne Guinness, the heiress and socialite, after Blow's death at the age of 48.
Blow, who was unable to have children with her husband, art dealer Detmar Blow, and was later diagnosed with ovarian cancer, had suffered from depression.

Miss Guinness is mounting the exhibition at Somerset House in London with the Isabella Blow Foundation and Central Saint Martins art college. She said the show was "bittersweet" but that she was putting it on for a "dear friend, in the hope that her legacy may continue to aid and inspire generations of designers to come".
"Isabella Blow made our world more vivid, trailing colour with every pace she took. It is a sorrier place for her absence," she said.
"When I visited her beloved clothes in a storage room in South Kensington, it seemed quite clear the collection would be of immense value to a great many people. I do believe that in choosing to exhibit them we've done the right thing - and that it is what she would have wanted."

Born Isabella Delves Broughton, Blow's father Sir Evelyn Delves Broughton was an Army major and her mother Helen Shore, a barrister. In the Eighties she worked in America as an assistant to Anna Wintour, the editor of Vogue, before returning to the UK to work at Tatler magazine and then British Vogue.

As part of the exhibition, mannequins will be dressed in outfits worn by Blow. Stylists have studied archived photographs to recreate her look, which often included a McQueen outfit, Treacy hat and Manolo Blahnik shoes.

Isabella Blow: Fashion Galore! runs from November 20 to March 2, 2014.