LONDON, Dec 5, 2007 (AFP) - Isabella Blow, the idiosyncratic British fashion stylist known for her garish hats and red lipstick, killed herself by taking 20 times the fatal dose of weedkiller, a coroner's inquest heard Wednesday, December 5th.

Isabella Blow - Photo : Peter MacDiarmid/Reuters

The 48-year-old had previously tried to take her own life at least three times before -- by jumping off a bridge, ramming her car into a lorry and overdosing on tablets, her sister, Lavinia Verney, told the hearing.

Coroner Alan Crickmore, sitting in Gloucester, western England, recorded a verdict of suicide after being told the fashion director of upscale magazine Tatler had told hospital staff she wanted to die.

She died in hospital on May 7 this year, two days after taking the poison at her home in Stroud, near Gloucester.

The inquest heard she knew that her second husband, Detmar Blow's father, had killed himself using the same poison. She had also been suffering from depression.

Blow -- nee Isabella Delves Broughton -- was best known for discovering new talents such as Irish miliner Philip Treacy, designer Alexander McQueen and the model Sophie Dahl.

She began her career in 1981 as assistant to Anna Wintour, now editor-in-chief of American Vogue magazine, and was once described as one of the 20 most important people in the fashion industry.