Isabella Blow: Alexander McQueen Suicide Link

The shocking suicide of fashion designer Alexander McQueen has left a lot of people asking why? One link to McQueen's suicide is his late friend, international style icon and magazine editor, Isabella Blow. McQueen owed a lot to Blow, who discovered the former Givenchy head designer directly out of graduate school when she purchased his entire graduate collection for £5,000 by paying it off in weekly £100 instalments.

Blow was and remains renown for her personal style, most famously her affinity for Philip Treacy hats. Her career spanned a variety of positions ranging from Anna Wintour's assistant to fashion director of the Sunday Times Style magazine to serving as a piece of art for some of the world's most talented fashion designers, photographers, and artists. Blow is also credited with discovering model Sophie Dahl, whom she described as "a blow up doll with brains," thus launching Dahl's career.

Blow suffered from depression; it was reported that she had trouble dealing with her inability to "find a home in a world she influenced." Blow was allegedly anguished when McQueen sold his brand to Gucci. Daphne Guinness, a good friend of Blow's, said, "she was upset that McQueen didn't take her along when he sold his brand to Gucci. Once the deals started happening, she fell by the wayside. Everybody else got contracts, and she got a free dress"

McQueen said of the insinuation, "It’s so much bollocks. These people just don’t know what they’re talking about. They don’t know me. They don’t know my relationship with Isabella. It’s complete bullshit. People can talk; you can ask her sisters.… That part of the industry, they should stay away from my life, or mine and Isabella’s life. What I had with Isabella was completely disassociated from fashion, beyond fashion."

On May 6, 2007 Blow was found collapsed on a bathroom floor by her sister, she was immediately taken to the hospital where she told the doctor she consumed the weed killer Paraquat. Blow died in the hospital the next day.

Following her death, Detmar Blow, her husband, stated that she had been suffering from depression and, at one point, said, "I can't beat it."

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sourced by Blaine Metzgar