19/11/2015
Happy Birthday Isabella!
Isabella Blow photographed by Dave Benett from the book: Philip Treacy by Rizzoli
This hat is called “Gilbert and George” because we went to an exhibition of the artists’ massive photographs with huge exclamations of colour that inspired the hat: neon pink and yellow ostrich feathers caked in glue, looking almost like plastic, against apple-green feathers on a fuchsia pink duchess satin base.
It was the hat of the moment for Isabella; she wore it all over London.
At Hilles, her house in the country, there had been an incident where the place would have burned down except that someone spotted smoke. The fire brigade were marvellous. Isabella was so grateful that she invited them to Christmas drinks, insisting that they turn up in uniform. On a wretchedly wet December night,
two fire engines came down the sloping drive, and one of them started to topple. They had to put ropes around trees and use the other fire engine to pull it free.Thirty firemen, soaked and cold, were shown into the drawing room to be met by Isabella, who was wearing the Gilbert and George. To say the firemen were stunned would be an understatement. The firemen were talking to her but kept their gazes on the floor. Every so often, they’d look up and then down again. Yet Isabella behaved as if she just had a pin in her hair.
