Isabella Blow.
Photograph: Eamonn McCabe
And so, RIP Isabella Blow, who yesterday had the send off, that certain newspapers decreed, with typical courage in embracing a cliché or two, that "Issy would have loved" (were she not, y'know, dead, mind. And if she weren't dead, then surely she wouldn't have been sent off anywhere. Unless posh fashion people are secretly a bit like Eskimos and they send off women on ice floats when they become old and barren and useless and - you know, I think we should end this train of thought now.)
Isabella Blow, for those who have somehow missed the surprisingly extensive coverage of her death last week, was a fashion stylist who spotted a couple of famous names (McQueen, Sophie Dahl, Philip Treacy), wore lots of funny hats and was relatively dropped by the fashion world when her behaviour became too "unpredictable" and she lost her role as fashion director of Tatler.
Anyways, there was a funeral and there were a lot of hats, both on the corpse (a Philip Treacy pheasant "creation") and in the audience. Isn't that sweet? One hesitates to wheel out a Krankie reference when discussing a funeral but it's a bit like when the Krankies do one of their timelessly humorous shows and people in the audience turn up dressed like the wee "lad." Actually, one doesn't hesitate at all, apparently.
So here we have lots of anonymous poshos wearing bits of Kew Gardens stuck to their scalp, and here Alexander McQueen, wearing some pointy little number. Dammit, even the horses had "ostrich-plumed headdresses", specially designed by the industrious Treacy. And, what a surprise, here we have Tara Palmer-Tompkinson, courageously combating her overwhelming sense of grief to wear some kind of TV satellite guaranteed to attract the attention of the paparazzi. Go Tara!
So let's see, a funeral full of random aristos and fashionistas, some undoubtedly expressing genuine sadness but quite a few just muscling in on Isabella's spotlight, stealing her bit of it and then buggering off to a party. Yes, that would seem just about apt.
