The core code of conduct governing fashion can sometimes be characterized as jungle law. According to the unspoken rules of the business, the person you had dinner with last night might, if it is expedient, cut you dead at a fashion show the following morning. Somehow this ugly reality is found usual and acceptable.

“Everyone in this industry loves to hate,” Joe Zee, the creative director of Elle magazine, said Tuesday. “Everyone is critical: ‘Oh, it’s fashion week again! I hate that collection! I hate that designer!’ Everything is built up to encourage dislike.”

Mr. Zee’s remarks were prompted by news of the death last week of an industry fixture, the stylist Annabel Tollman, a woman who by her nature proved an exception to the rule. Almost immediately after Ms. Tollman’s death was reported by The Huffington Post, for which she was a contributor, social media were flooded with an outpouring of grief for a woman barely known beyond the industry.

Most remarkable about the commentary was its depiction of Ms. Tollman, who was 39, as a beacon in a harsh business, a woman the artist Lola Montes Schnabel characterized as a “wonderful sparkling angel” in a Facebook post.