I somehow persuaded the managing editor’s office that Issie needed my help with shoots, and spent a blissful six months working for her. I would arrive at 10, dressed in my uniform of black jeans and a black polo neck (all I could afford then), and sit in the dark corner Issie had been allocated in the spacious fashion editor’s room (her ebullience distracted the other editors, who placed her as far away as possible). I would start organizing what we were going to do that day … Invariably the phone would ring about 11, with Issie on the line saying, ‘Darling – could you come round to Elizabeth Street? Had too much gin last night.’ I’d grab a black cab, head over to Belgravia, sit by Issie’s narrow four-poster bed taking notes, and spend the rest of the day executing her wishes.
Plum Sykes – British fashion journalist.
This quote is from the article, Goodbye Vogue House, in Vogue magazine, December 2023. The British Vogue magazine headquarters (called Vogue House) is relocating after decades in the same Mayfair building. Three former staff members, including Sykes, chimed in on their memories of working at British Vogue.
Sykes was at Vogue in the early 1990s working for the dynamo fashion icon Isabella Blow (Issie).
OverDressed for Life 