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Isabella Blow and Alexander McQueen pictured in 2003
Credit: Dave Benett/Getty Images
The at times tumultuous relationship shared by the late, iconic Alexander McQueen and Isabella Blow is being developed into a feature film, according to a report in Variety.
Maven Pictures, whose production credits also include Shia LaBeouf’s Cannes Jury Prize-winning film American Honey, will develop The Ripper from a screenplay written by debut screenwriter Gesha-Marie Bland; the film’s director and cast are yet to be named. For what little it’s worth, my money is on a Tom Hardy/Benedict Cumberbatch (with a buzzcut) and Helena Bonham Carter/Kristen Scott Thomas casting.
The film’s title is presumably a reference to McQueen’s 1992 graduate collection Jack The Ripper Stalks His Victims, which Blow famously purchased in its entirety. The collection has recently reentered headlines after a fellow Central Saint Martins student announced her intention to create a collection of apparel and accessories made of skin cultivated from DNA extracted from McQueen’s hair, which the designer incorporated into his typically macabre collection.
Blow’s first grand act of creative patronage signalled the beginning of a rich and unparalleled yet volatile friendship that would last until Blow, a Tatler fashion editor and stylist with aristocratic heritage and a penchant for Philip Treacy’s incredible millinery, took her own life in 2007. At the time, the British press speculated that a rift in her friendship with McQueen, arising after he was appointed creative director at Givenchy but failed to enlist her on his team, contributed to her tragic demise. In the years before his own death in 2011, McQueen maintained that there was no such rift; he would also go on to dedicate his incredible Spring 2008 collection to Blow and her inestimable legacy.
In the years since, the life and work of both Blow and McQueen have been subject to inspired exhibitions (Blow’s A Fashionable Life finished its run in Sydney this past weekend; McQueen’s Savage Beauty is the highest grossing exhibition ever staged at the V&A and revolutionised the Met Museum’s Costume Institute’s annual retrospectives) as well as countless tomes commemorating their lives and friendship.
Tile image: Dave Benett/Getty Images
Cover image: Alexander McQueen A/W 1998, Paul Vicente/AFP/Getty Images
