Andrea Riseborough To Play Isabella Blow In ‘The Queen Of Style’

EXCLUSIVE: British author, director, and producer Alex Marx will make his function debut with The Queen of Style, a long-gestating biopic of vogue editor, stylist, and iconoclast Isabella Blow, with Academy Award nominee Andrea Riseborough set to provide and play the lead function.

The Queen of Style particulars the ups and downs of Blow’s life championing unknown and marginalized vogue figures like Alexander McQueen, Philip Treacy, and Sophie Dahl, whom she catapulted to success whereas fighting undiagnosed bipolar dysfunction. The challenge will probably be bought in Cannes by Rocket Science for worldwide, with CAA Media Finance arranging financing for the movie and dealing with home rights.

Riseborough will star as Blow alongside a strong supporting forged that includes Emilia Clarke as Daphne Guinness, Richard E. Grant as Blow’s father Evelyn Delves Broughton, Fionn O’Shea as Philip Treacy, and Hayley Atwell as Alexandra Schulman. Verity Naughton CDG continues casting key roles, together with these of Isabella’s husband Detmar Blow, her mom Helen Delves Broughton, clothier Alexander McQueen, and journalist Michael Roberts.

Blow started her profession in vogue at Man Laroche in Texas earlier than she was employed by Vogue as an assistant to Anna Wintour and André Leon Talley. In New York, her circle included Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat. She returned to London in 1986 the place she labored for Roberts, then the style director of Tatler and The Sunday Instances Model journal.

Treacy designed the hat Isabella wore to her wedding ceremony to Detmar in 1989; the beginning of a protracted affiliation with the milliner. She found McQueen and bought his whole graduate assortment for £5,000, paid off in weekly £100 installments. Blow would go on to change into the style director for Tatler journal.

Blow’s psychological well being suffered in the direction of the tip of her life, and she or he was finally recognized with bipolar dysfunction—for which she obtained electroshock remedy—and ovarian most cancers. Within the final years of her life, she tried suicide many occasions, finally dying by suicide in 2007.

“I’ve admired Andrea’s work since first witnessing her extraordinary expertise over 20 years in the past within the Nationwide Youth Theatre,” says Marx. “There are few actors who can match her braveness, her virtuosity, and her sheer open-heartedness. I’m blessed to be working along with her and can’t wait to see her deliver Issie to life.”

Alex Marx has labored as an actor and appearing coach, notably collaborating with Emily Beecham, who received the Finest Actress prize in Cannes in 2019 for Little Joe. He made his directorial debut with the brief Joyful Accident, and his different shorts embrace Syncronicity, Fingers, and OK, Mum, all of which he wrote. He appeared alongside Riseborough in Daisy Lewis’s brief Actress in 2020. He has developed The Queen of Style over eight years.

Riseborough was Oscar-nominated for her efficiency in To Leslie in 2023. She stars in HBO’s restricted sequence The Regime, alongside Kate Winslet, Hugh Grant, Matthias Schoenarts and Martha Plimpton, in addition to Alice and Jack reverse Domnhnall Gleeson. She is repped by CAA, Unbiased Expertise Group, and Untitled Leisure

The Queen of Style is produced by Matthew Rhodes for The Hideaway Leisure; alongside Elise Freeman for Mystic Daybreak Media; Andrea Riseborough for Mom Sucker; Robert Ogden Barnum; and Catrin Lewis Defis. Govt producers embrace Alison Owen; Jonathan Grey and Ryan Cassells for The Hideaway Leisure; Thorsten Schumacher and Claire Taylor for Rocket Science; and Jason Tan. The movie will probably be shot by veteran cinematographer Stephen Goldblatt (The Assist, Nearer) with British musician Laura Mvula on board to compose music.

“Alex’s spectacular imaginative and prescient as a filmmaker together with Andrea’s dedication to advanced and emotional performances make this an thrilling challenge to be part of,” says Rhodes.