In an industry where many buckle to passing trends, Isabella Blow stood out for her fearless individualism. What you notice if you trawl through the thousands of photographs taken of Blow during more than 25 years in the fashion industry is how boring everyone else looks in comparison. It takes guts to step out of the door in a one-legged trouser suit, after all.

Not one to mince her words, Blow freely admitted that her passion for fashion bordered on insanity. It isn’t clear whether she was referring to her choice of attire or pure obsession with acquiring the right piece, though one assumes both interpretations work just as well. Described as one of the kindest stars in the fashion world by her editor at Tatler, Geordie Greig, Isabella might have surrounded herself with grandeur and importance, but she was not lofty. Her constant energy and spirit became a platform from which many young designers launched their careers. She was just as happy sitting in the front row of the Central Saint Martins graduate show as she was at Yves Saint Laurent – the same cannot be said for many on fashion circuit.

"She was charming, candid and quite possibly slightly tipsy - fabulous but personable," recalls one young Times journalist, Arion McNicoll, who met her briefly at a Mont Blanc/Vanity Fair party at the National Portrait Gallery during London Fashion Week 2005. "She blew in with a sparkling silver cone attached to her head and Philip Treacy on her arm. The party was fairly quiet and she was unmissable. I would venture that she was unmissable most places she went. At one stage I cornered Philip Treacy to ask him about his life in fashion. He told me that he once tried to buy Marilyn Monroe’s fake eyelashes. He summoned over Blow to back him up. 'Darling,' she said to me, 'that is only the start of the story.'

"We spent the rest of the evening looking around the exhibition together, until she, realising she was now 'accidentally' late for the Topshop show, kissed me at least five times and disappeared into the night. Most of the party left after she did."

Her companion that night, the milliner Philip Treacy, and Alexander McQueen were obviously, her greatest finds. These two showmen, like her, thought outside of the usual fashion box, and their and drama couldn’t have suited Blow better. But she contributed more than that to the fashion world. Once upon time, her flamboyance discomfited the industry - 'In the old days, people were frightened by my hats,' she told the Observer in a 2002 interview. But she had become deeply respected within fashion circles, even if she had been considered an attention-seeking eccentric outside of them. It was Blow who brokered the Gucci deal for McQueen in 2000 - apparently instructing Tom Ford to buy the McQueen label and telling McQueen that Ford fancied him.

She might have suffered from terrible depression - Blow tried to commit suicide at least twice - but she always dressed with a sense of humour. In a world that takes itself extremely seriously, this was a welcome relief. Aside from her sharp wit and intellect, it’s obvious that the reason so many people enjoyed being around her was because they could live out their fashion fantasies through her don’t-give-a-damn attitude and plucky style.

Read more about Isabella

Gorgeous images from the Design Museum's exhibition When Philip met Isabella

The New York Times obituary

The 2002 interview in the Guardian

Vogue.co.uk remembers

Philip Treacy's website

Times recommends

• Tewkesbury: when the memories flood back
• How I lost the gift of joy for a while
• The A-Z of winter style rules