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Hilary Alexander was the life and soul of the fashion front row

Hilary Alexander - Martin Pope
Hilary Alexander - Martin Pope

For 26 years, Hilary Alexander, my inimitable predecessor, whose death was announced on Monday, was a formidable fashion journalist - an inexhaustible newshound who always got her story. Never did those skills shine more than in the lead up to the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton.

As the big day approached, a rival newspaper employed a special investigative team to dig out the answer to what was one of the most jealously guarded secrets of that year: who was designing Kate’s wedding dress. Eventually, they came up with a tentative answer. Sarah Burton, the newish designer who’d taken over from Alexander McQueen at his own house after he died two years earlier, had been entrusted with the momentous commission.

This seemed unlikely. Kate had never previously dressed from the label, which was still considered quite avant garde with a slightly aggressive aesthetic. The story was roundly poo-pooed by almost everyone in the industry. “I’ve been speaking with Sarah and I can categorically tell everyone, she is not doing the dress”, crowed an authoritative journalist a few weeks before the wedding.

'Hilary Alexander was an inexhaustible newshound who always got her story' - Roger Taylor for The Telegraph
'Hilary Alexander was an inexhaustible newshound who always got her story' - Roger Taylor for The Telegraph

Undeterred, Hilary worked until almost literally the last moment to confirm the story one way or another. When word got out that the entire Middleton clan had moved into the Goring Hotel a couple of nights before the wedding, Hilary decamped from the Telegraph’s HQ around the corner and set up office on the pavement opposite the Goring’s entrance. As was usually the case with her, persistence paid off.

A black limo drew up, a large suit bag emerged, closely followed by a glimpse of denim and a swish of blonde hair. No face was visible, but no matter.  “I’d know that foot anywhere,“ declared Hilary, Holmes-ishly. “It’s Sarah’s”. It was indeed Burton’s. The authoritative journalist was wrong. Hilary had her headline.

Born in New Zealand, she moved to Australia in the 1970s, then Hong Kong, where she honed her reporting skills on The China Mail. She could be a bit hazy about the details of her career, but no one was left in any doubt about it being a wild ride.

(L to R) Vanessa Kirby, Lana Del Rey, Kate Moss, Alexa Chung, Rebecca Hall and Hilary Alexander sit in the front row during the Mulberry Spring/Summer 2013 Show during London Fashion Week at Claridge's - Dave M Benett/Getty Images Europe
(L to R) Vanessa Kirby, Lana Del Rey, Kate Moss, Alexa Chung, Rebecca Hall and Hilary Alexander sit in the front row during the Mulberry Spring/Summer 2013 Show during London Fashion Week at Claridge's - Dave M Benett/Getty Images Europe

Nights out with Hilary were awash with spicy anecdotes. She particularly loved the one about Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman pulling down the front zipper of her 1960s mini dress in a cocktail bar in Hong Kong during an interview and of how, unperturbed, she continued - braless, naturally - with her questions. But then, before landing that job on The China Mail, she’d had a stint - so she always insisted - working in one of Hong Kong’s topless waitress bars.

She was rightly proud of smashing her way past her far more conventional Oxbridge and Russell-Group peers who made up most newspapers’ cadres of reporters. In 2013, she went to the Palace to collect her OBE for services to the fashion industry.

Hilary Alexander - Heathcliff O'Malley
Hilary Alexander - Heathcliff O'Malley
The Telegraph's Hilary Alexander pictured here with Camilla, then Duchess of Cornwall at New Zealand House in February 2014 - Getty Images /Chris Jackson Collection
The Telegraph's Hilary Alexander pictured here with Camilla, then Duchess of Cornwall at New Zealand House in February 2014 - Getty Images /Chris Jackson Collection

By the time I entered the scene, the mini dresses had gone, replaced by an ebb and flow of Stevie Nicks-style boho dresses, lashings of necklaces, her beloved Alexander McQueen frock coat and a furry, flappy “Uncle Bulgaria” hat she’d found on a shoot in Kazakhstan. With her teeny reading glasses perched precariously on the tip of her nose, and a cigarette almost always to hand, she had acquired her Distinctive Look.

The fashion front row from left to right: Jonathan Newhouse, Anna Wintour, Bill Nighy, Hilary Alexander, writer Lisa Armstrong and Laura Craig at the Mulberry Autumn / Winter 2012 show during London Fashion Week - Dave M Benett/Getty Images Europe
The fashion front row from left to right: Jonathan Newhouse, Anna Wintour, Bill Nighy, Hilary Alexander, writer Lisa Armstrong and Laura Craig at the Mulberry Autumn / Winter 2012 show during London Fashion Week - Dave M Benett/Getty Images Europe

I was quite junior at Vogue, but I think she liked that. At any rate, after a particularly glamorous party for Valentino in Rome (Liz Taylor was guest of honour), Hilary ended up crashing out in my bedroom. Taylor had lost 18 trunk-fulls of clothes and jewellery on the flight over. Hilary had mislaid her bedroom. How, no one quite understood. But a good time was had by all...

If she partied for England (and New Zealand), she worked like a Stakhanovite. Her energy was superhuman.

Hilary Alexander and Kate Moss at the Topshop Brompton Road store opening in May 2010 - Richard Young/Shutterstock
Hilary Alexander and Kate Moss at the Topshop Brompton Road store opening in May 2010 - Richard Young/Shutterstock

A year or so after Rome, I had become fashion editor of The Independent - completely inexperienced. By the end of Milan, I was so stressed out, I hadn’t slept for six days - until the final evening, when I lay down on my bed for a few moments, only to wake up two hours later and discover I’d missed the Versace show.

In those days, there were no smart-phones, no instant replay and no time to call the Versace team and beg them to let me jump into a taxi to see the clothes on the rail. It was 7pm and a huge Versace-shaped crater remained unfilled on page three. Hilary, who at that point, was number two in the Telegraph’s fashion team under its Fashion Director Kathryn Samuel, saw me in the lobby, a snivelling wreck, and talked me through the whole thing. I don’t know what I would have done without her.

Hilary Alexander and Kylie Minogue - KMazur/WireImage
Hilary Alexander and Kylie Minogue - KMazur/WireImage

She could be as kind as she could be terrifying. I never imagined I’d eventually inherit her role at The Telegraph but when she finally retired in 2012, she called to wish me luck and remind me I was inheriting the best job in the world. She wasn’t wrong.

To sit next to Hilary at the shows was to be treated to an experience that was a unique blend of massage and wrestling match. Bobbing to the music - whatever it was - she was always the first to bounce out of her seat as the models were still filing off the catwalks, the ears of Uncle Bulgaria’s hat flopping away as she stormed the catwalk to get backstage before everyone else, or ambushed a celebrity in the front row.

Alexander - Steve Eichner/Penske Media via Getty Images
Alexander - Steve Eichner/Penske Media via Getty Images

She would do anything to get a story, including walking off with the precious lookbook (the book of photographs of the collection) at a Givenchy preview, thereby ensuring no one else got to see the whole collection on models before the show. I’m told by her team that writs flew. Much she cared. Once again, she’d got her exclusive.

She never adopted the jaded cynicism of many of her peers. From dawn til the following dawn, she loved every aspect of the fashion industry - the tantrums, the talent, the debuts, the come-backs.

Hilary Alexander, Matthew Williamson and Victoria Beckham Matthew Williamson show for Spring / Summer 2007, Olympus Fashion Week, New York, America
Hilary Alexander, Matthew Williamson and Victoria Beckham Matthew Williamson show for Spring / Summer 2007, Olympus Fashion Week, New York, America

Although she worshipped cats, she had to give hers away because she travelled so much. She was probably happiest when she was on the road - whether that involved covering Lahore’s Fashion Week, or chucking everyone out of the sea on a shoot on a nudist beach in Jamaica because they were ruining the picture. As for her fashion spreads - she was one of the first to mix high street with designer. Cue more complaints from the brands, but she was fearless.

Most of all, she adored a party, never more so than when she was hosting. Back then, The Telegraph’s Paris correspondents lived in a vast, twisty, turny flat on the Rue de Rivoli that seemed to sprawl into the Rue Saint Honore. Every season, Hilary would take up residence in the flat during Paris Fashion Week and host the mother of all parties.

Hilary Alexander - Martin Pope
Hilary Alexander - Martin Pope

It was at these that even the most self-controlled journalists would finally abandon their carefully cultivated froideur and perform River Dance/Singing in the Rain or indulge in some twerking, depending on what was the current fad. For someone who loved badgering the secrets out of others, she was quite vague about her age, but it was irrelevant. She had more stamina than any teenager, and a love of fashion that simply couldn’t comprehend those who didn’t share her passion.

Tom Ford, designer

“Hilary was not only an incredible journalist but a terrific human. She had a wicked sense of humor and I spent a good deal of my time with her laughing. She was one of those who made fashion fun. As a journalist she was a pro. Always armed with intelligent and thoughtful questions and absolutely accurate in her reporting. The thing that I will always remember about Hilary was her enthusiasm for fashion. She always seemed excited to see a show and excited to be a fashion journalist and excited just to be alive. I adored her. She was one of the greats in our business and she will be missed.”

Zandra Rhodes, designer

Hilary Alexander was the epitome of enthusiasm and hard work, I am proud to have been her friend. She never gave up, even when fashion was not taken as seriously as it is today. Hilary fought to have fashion taken into the mainstream and published within newspapers and broadsheets - she believed in it as a right. She changed the face of fashion journalism as we know it today. Hilary never gave up on a story and the research that went into it; she understood the underpinnings and cultural references and was a beacon of knowledge. Intelligent, funny and kind - we will never be able to fill the gap she has left.

David Gandy, model

I will always remember Hilary as a whirlwind of hilarity and kindness at any fashion show or event. However it was away from the fashion industry, through her love, passion and dedication for our work together at Battersea Dogs Home that I’ll remember her most fondly.

Giles Deacon, designer

I have such fond memories of Hilary, a genuine one-off who was kind, hilarious and sharp as a tack with the questions straight after a show. Her support of new talent and the underdog was fierce, and I adored her quite blatant disdain towards the establishment.

Some years ago we happened to be at Heathrow together, and she’d had a ski accident. The flight was delayed, we were rather bored and her foot was still in a cast, but she managed to commandeer a golf cart (with driver) to take us on a bar crawl of terminal 3 to pass the time. Absolute magic, and we made the flight.

Suzy Menkes, journalist 

With a ‘ciggy’ in one hand and a glass in the other, Hilary Alexander still managed to be the sharp, high-level fashion reporter that she remained before passing away. At 77, she had managed to continue a high level of support for fashion and especially for young talent, around which she would always fling - metaphorically speaking - her open arms. What she did for the last decade of fashion work was commendable; encouraging, helping and supporting young talent. As Trustee of Graduate Fashion Week and on the spot of every student show, Hilary put her energy and drive into the souls of the eager, dream-filled young.