This Oscar-nominee is playing Isabella Blow in a new fashion biopic

This week marks 17 years since the death of Isabella Blow. The magazine editor and fashion muse is best known for a vibrant career working with the likes of Philip Treacy, Steven Meisel and André Leon Talley, plus launching the careers of people like Stella Tennant, Sophie Dahl, and – of course – Lee Alexander McQueen. Now, this unparalleled life is coming to the silver screen, as British filmmaker Alex Marx makes his feature debut with the new Blow biopic The Queen of Fashion.

As reported in Deadline, Academy Award-nominee Andrea Risebrough is taking on the role of Blow, and will be joined by Game of Thrones actor Emilia Clarke as Blow’s close friend Daphne Guinness, with up-and-comer Fionn O’Shea starring as Treacy. Previously, Riseborough has played American socialite Wallis Simpson in W.E., bagged an Oscar nomination for 2022’s To Leslie, and taken on starring roles in Birdman and Tom Ford’s Nocturnal Animals.

Elsewhere in The Queen of Fashion cast, Richard E. Grant is set to play Evelyn Delves Broughton, Blow’s blue-blooded father, while Hayley Atwell is playing former British Vogue editor Alexandra Schulman. More key roles – including Blow’s protégé McQueen – will be announced shortly.

The new film is described as a “long-gestating biopic” of Blow’s time in the spotlight, one that “details the ups and downs of [her] life championing unknown and marginalised fashion figures.” Though details on particulars are scant, this will probably include Blow’s discovery of McQueen and subsequent purchase of his entire 1992 Saint Martins graduate collection, plus her social milieu in 80s New York that included Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat. The film will likely focus on Blow’s mental health battles too, ones that saw her struggle with infertility and a bipolar diagnosis, which eventually led to her suicide in 2007.

In other fashion news this week, we spoke to Rihanna’s new fave designer Jawara Alleyne about the next chapter in his burgeoning career; the Met Gala red carpet delivered the good, the bad, and the most interesting looks, but where were all the women and POC designers?; Linda Evangelista turned 59 today, so we looked back at her 59 greatest runway moments; Michael Gove quoted Kate Moss in a Tory cabinet meeting for some reason; plus, we wondered if Kendrick Lamar channelled the Gallagher brothers’ eternal beef by writing his Drake diss in an Oasis t-shirt. For everything else you might’ve missed, click through the gallery below.