RYP Isabella Blow

- The Queen of broken glass

I’m not into haute couture fashion, so I shan’t pretend to be mourning fashion designer, Alexander McQueen’s death anymore than that of any other stranger who found peace of mind in suicide.

What I will say is, there’s a woman who’s been on my mind for a number of years, and I don’t know why. I became aware of her, a year or so after her death (she also committed suicide) on one of my midnight web surfing benders. There’s something about her that haunts me. It’s not a bad haunting either; it’s an eccentric, dandyish haunting. 

Bizarrely, she [Isabella Blow] is someone who I often think of, somebody who unexpectedly enters my thoughts. Perhaps it’s her name, Isabella Blow (spooky name right?) or, perhaps it’s the effort she put into her suicide attempts. Or maybe, it’s just the way she wore her sadness – a tad below the rim of her hat – that gets to me. I’m not sure I would have liked her had I met her but, I can’t help feeling the world…or rather, my world, would have been a little more opulent with her in it (click here for Ms. Blow).

Maybe it’s just that feeling we all get, when somebody we never met takes his or her life. The feeling of, “if only” I knew them I could have stopped them, I would have been there for them, I would have held their hand – told the right joke. Saved them.

Anyway, no doubt the tributes will come flooding in for Alexander McQueen. Apparently, he was a genius and I have no reason to dispute it. Nevertheless, I shall be quietly remembering somebody else – the woman who is credited with discovering him, Isabella Blow.  A woman whose life (and death) has left an indelible logo on my eclectic mind, ever since I discovered her.

- Cheyelle Omar

RYP* Isabella Blow

  

*Remembering You Privately

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