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Isabella Blow | British fashion stylist, 48

Stylist and fashion guru Isabella Blow, 48, a vibrant and often outrageous presence on the British fashion scene, has died, her husband said.

Stylist and fashion guru Isabella Blow, 48, a vibrant and often outrageous presence on the British fashion scene, has died, her husband said.

Detmar Blow said she died in the Gloucestershire Royal Hospital, in western England. Reports said she had recently been diagnosed with ovarian cancer.

Renowned for larger-than-life hats and blood-red lipstick - take a look via go.philly.com/isabella - she was credited with discovering designer Alexander McQueen and milliner Philip Treacey. She helped launch the careers of models including Stella Tennant and Sophie Dahl.

Most recently, she was an editor at large for Tatler magazine.

Born Isabella Delves Broughton in London in 1958, she moved to New York in 1979 to study ancient Chinese art at Columbia University. She soon dropped out and moved to Texas to work for fashion designer Guy Laroche.

After a stint at Vogue, she later returned to London, where she worked for Tatler, the Sunday Times and British Vogue.

She asked Treacey to design her bridal headdress, and a fashion collaboration was born.

She began a fashion collaboration with Treacey and would serve as muse for a host of his headgear, including "The Ship" - a replica 18th-century clipper in full rigging. Another creation was so wide that Ms. Blow was unable to navigate the door of the charity event for which she had ordered it. - AP