Some women live on through their words; others their clothes; Isabella Blow lives on through both. That is the focus of the exhibition opening at Somerset House today – Fashion Galore will look at ‘extraordinary life and wardrobe’ of Izzy Blow.

It features gems from one of Britain’s most loved eccentrics, from her patrician upbringing and early days as super-stylist (arguably, one of the first) all the way up to her death, aged 48, in 2007.

In the run-up to the opening, fashion website SHOWstudio has been interviewing those who were close to Blow (including the site's founder, photographer Nick Knight), and the tributes to Blow have been overwhelming. Overwrought, even.

'She’s become a Marilyn Monroe figure, that everybody loves,' explains milliner Philip Treacy, who Blow discovered as a young graduate at the RCA, in the interview below. 'They don’t know why they love her but there’s something touching about her.'

Often hard-viewing, the vignettes are testament to Blow's involvement at a grass roots level of fashion, despite her sometimes lofty or conceptual ideas.

'It’s brilliant that people will go and see it,' adds Treacy, 'but for people that knew her, it’s heavy-viewing. I’m dreading it.'

'I went to see her in hospital five days before she died, and she felt she didn’t matter anymore. This exhibition proves her wrong. She’s always going to matter now.'

Watch the full interview with Philip Treacy below, or click the gallery to see a lookbook of some of Isabella Blow's most infamous fashion moments.

Isabella Blow: Fashion Galore! opens 20 November at Somerset House; for more information, click here. Hats off to Isabella Blow, a special one-off ice skating session where skaters are encouraged to wear their most flamboyant headwear in homage to Isabella Blow, will take place at Somerset House on Sunday 1 December at 12.30.