Isabella Blow: Fashion Galore! Review

More like Isabella Blow Me PLEASE you fashion whore! In the most complimentary way possible.

I knew of the eccentric before the exhibition, not her life-story because I tend to not care about someone's personal life unless it has relevance. And working as a cleaner for a couple of years has some inspirational relevance if you're an x factor fan.

Julien MacDonald 1995
Knitwear 

Warning: have TINY clutch-bag-size luggage, anything bigger will get put into the cloakroom because in the exhibition you get to come right up close to the work! All up in their faces.

Somerset House got with Central Saint Martins and the Isabella Blow Foundation to put on this kind-of retrospective of her career, how she influenced and brought us the late GREAT McQueen and the genius milliner Philip Treacy. This exhibition showcases and celebrates the important influence craft has on design. Craft being the basis of a concept, the purpose in that material, its body, giving personality to the piece as a whole. If you see the show PLEASE don't go and say  'look at the detail' or heartlessly gush 'it's stunning'. The make is not what these are about, what about the detail? I am sick of going to shows and hearing people dissect the work as if all they see is an object that's been put together 'well' and there is nothing more to it. These pieces are examples of fashion being a beautiful canvas for expression, working with the body, the effect it has on materials, fashion can be more than just looking good or edgy.

The biggest dilemma with exhibitions showing clothing/fashion/costume is, how do you present it? There is nothing I hate more than seeing a piece on a plain mannequin or dress making dummy. These pieces are designed for movement! V&A Hollywood Costume show used specially-made mannequins that had 'action', was still a bit naff imo.

Philip Treacy

McQueen, A/W 1996

I really liked the first half of this Blow show though, presenting McQueen's A/W 1996 pieces on broken, silver mannequins, more sculptural. They are positioned in a way that you can weave in and out of each piece, looking at all sides like you could in a catwalk.  The body of fragile futuristic females wearing victorian bodices and military jackets, literally limbs missing, added a death element - we are looking at the late McQueen's work which the late Blow supported. There is an unsettling vibe throughout through the presentation, the first section completely dark with spotlights.

 You leave the misty walled McQueen show and walk up the misty stairs, into Philip Treacy's brightly lit world. It is just breathtakingly inspiring, such drama, theatre and character in his work. Of course the craft is impressive but those techniques feed into the idea, the buckram material itself being seamless and solid and lace-like, or the use of plastic creating alienesque pieces, the classic, mainstream headwear you get in shops are trumped. You witness what is truly possible with feathers, fabrics and structure sat on a head.

Then it is party central! Blow besides Warhol, Kate Moss, her worn-out shoes, the avant-garde cultural pieces leading through a path of solmen silhouettes of women in McQueen outfits, Blahnik footwear and Treacy headwear. It is the section of Blow's career and how she led it showed off successfully. The flashing fountain at the top of the stairs is boss.

The climax of the show is her early death, and it led to La Dame Bleue S/S 2008, MCQueen and Treacy's collaboration to celebrate Isabella Blow. Designs themselves are showcased on mannequins, looking far more still and chilling, but heads up high in respect to the great. Sit through the whole show, it is far more emotive in its massive scale.

The sentiment in the show, respecting the late Blow, is in the lighting of the space, you feel it throughout. Her influence, her energy and her ability to see the greatness in the challenging are on show. The beginnings, the discoveries, collaborations and influences she had, and her early end through to her rebirth through McQueen and Treacy collaboration in 2008, and how she continues to inspire through Nick Knight's photography, Somerset House have done good.

Nick Knight