Blow's final death

I've been reading about the late Isabella Blow (Isabella Blow by Martina Rink), a fashion champion and tragic figure.  It's a book of farewell letters and memories written by friends and family.  Some of them are beautiful and touching, some smack a bit of guilt for not doing more or being there when the time came, I suppose that's understandable, we all wish we'd done more when it's too late.

As per her dramatic approach to life so it was with death, Blow had attempted to commit suicide previously but without "success" (she jumped off a bridge clad in Prada) until finally she drank weed-killer and that did it.

She sounds like an absolute riot, really naughty and fun.  As one of the book's contributors asks "who could take themselves seriously with a lobster on their head?".

The most haunting image from the book is "Isabella Blow" a piece by Noble and Webster, so macabre, created from dead things - including ravens from The Tower of London - it's a fitting tribute to a lady whose life seems to have been always pointing determinedly towards death.  What a loss to the world.

The Master, indeed

I recently saw Paul Thomas Anderson's latest, The Master, and while I liked rather than loved it, there were three things that have really stuck with me; Joaquin Pheonix's wardrobe, his performance and the scenes of the wake of a ship that were interspersed throughout the film.

As a veteran of the Navy following World War II Pheonix is a drifter, and alcoholic, who falls in with a spiritual leader / founder of a cult that isn't Scientology played by Phillip Seymour Hoffman.  In the same way that Pheonix drifts, his clothes appear to swim around his body, they fit him but they billow perfectly. 

Congratulations to the masterful Mark Bridges (Costume Designers on all of Anderson's films to date), while some of the Boogie Nights outfits will go down as classics, this wardrobe really haunts me.

Queen Bee

At last, something to get excited about - I really tried to be impressed with the Hedi Slimane / Saint Laurent collection but it just all felt a bit obvious and stuck in the 70s - so here's someone who is doing a House's name proud.  Sarah Burton at Alexander McQueen. 

Wholly different scenario I know but Burton is a real talent, a real designer.  She has a feminine style yet manages to combine her touch almost seamlessly with McQueen's romantic and harder edge.  I know they worked together for years before his death so it makes sense that she knew his hand and she really does manage to keep his spirit alive through her collections. 

The hour-glass silhouette, the sexy corsets, the opulent fabrics, the gothic with the whimsical chiffon frocks with the sci-fi suiting, it all came together and it worked.