Isabel Blows Us Off
Another wild and fun one bites the dust. Suffering from cancer and lifelong depression, Tatler magazine fashion director and general fashion icon Isabel Blow apparently took her own life last Saturday. From the London Daily Mail:
Friends staying at Hilles, the couple's Arts and Crafts home in Painswick, Gloucestershire, suggested that Blow, who suffered intense bouts of depression, poisoned herself on Saturday after telling house guests she was going shopping.Her death follows at least two other suicide attempts. Last year she was in hospital after taking an overdose and in 2005 tried to kill herself by throwing herself off a bridge over a motorway.
Her husband, to whom she became engaged 16 days after meeting him, said: "She was a ray of sunshine. She was a beautiful, brave woman: indefatigable, courageous and brilliantly theatrical.
Via Jackie Danicki and Hillary Johnson's Jack&Hill blog, there are a few quotes to remember her by. Here's one from Blow herself that I loved:
If you don't wear lipstick I can't talk to you. You need to have lips. They are very important for getting men.
And here's one from Vogue's Anna Wintour, for whom she once worked as a personal assistant:
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.
The Daily Mail profile of Blow is here.
The autopsy results say that she died from a drug overdose - from what her friends say, it was probably intentional. She actually threw herself off the Hammersmith Flyover in London in 2005, sustaining horrific injuries. One of multiple suicide attempts, it left her unable to wear her adored high heels, so designers like Manolo Blahnik and Jimmy Choo sent her lots of flat shoes.
Jackie Danicki at May 12, 2007 3:57 PM
Sad. It's such a shame nobody was able to help her with this depression.
A related aside: Late in his life, Dr. Os Janiger, whom I knew through Roy Walford and Tim Leary, called himself "the chemist," used drugs to chemically alter seriously mentally ill people so they could function, and did work with LSD as well. He's dead now, but he and Terrence McKenna (also dead) both experimented with illegal drugs and mood, and I wonder if government prohibitions against drugs that give people pleasure and/or are used for fun have held back research in this area -- helping people like Blow.
Amy Alkon at May 12, 2007 4:18 PM
Just in case you missed this Amy/Jackie;
There is extraordinary update on the "White Mischief" murder mystery and Isabel Blow's grandfather in today's Telegraph:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/global/main.jhtml?xml=/global/2007/05/11/nosplit/ftwhite11.xml
Jody Tresidder at May 16, 2007 8:36 AM
Thanks so much, Jody. I saw the movie about this years ago, which is excellent.
Amy Alkon at May 16, 2007 8:43 AM
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mkorbt myerijal at May 19, 2007 12:56 AM
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mkorbt myerijal at May 19, 2007 12:57 AM
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mkorbt myerijal at May 19, 2007 12:58 AM
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