Acclaimed British costume designer Stephanie Collie, whose work included creating the iconic look of the Peaky Blinders that sparked its own menswear trend, has died.
Stars including Cillian Murphy, Daniel Craig and Samuel L Jackson paid tribute to Collie – whose other landmark designs included on Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrells, which “helped define an era” – after news that she had died aged 60 from cancer last week.
Collie created the look on a string of films including Layer Cake, Michael Winterbottom’s The Look of Love with Steve Coogan, London has Fallen and The Hitman’s Bodyguard with Ryan Reynolds and Jackson. Her last released project was Prime Video’s Tudor drama series My Lady Jane.
Craig, who starred in Layer Cake said, “She was a joy to work with and she will be deeply missed.” Jackson added, “Stephanie was a fuel for my characters. A wonderfully joyous and collaborative part of my process. I’ll miss her, is an understatement.”
Her best-known designs came on Peaky Blinders for which she based the look of Tommy Shelby, played by Murphy, and his Birmingham gang in 1919 on criminal mug shots of the era.
The style, comprising white club collar shirts, tweed waistcoats and baker boy hats, was embraced by viewers and became a mainstream fashion phenomenon. For that first series she also won a Royal Television Society Award for best Costume Design.
So many people contacted Collie for tips on getting the ‘Peaky Blinders look’ that she would give masterclasses. As she told Esquire, “You need a good three piece suit. I’d suggest that you get the trousers narrowed and shortened. A good pair of lace up boots that go above your ankle. Pick the right six-piece section cap (baker boy), and I think you’d have a great outfit.”
Responding to the news this week, Murphy said, “Stephanie was a ferocious talent. She invented the Peaky Blinders look and silhouette that has become iconic across the world. We will all miss her.”
Born in Warrington, Cheshire in 1963, Collie had always been fascinated by film and TV. After studying at the London College of Fashion she started in the sewing room at the BBC where she worked with costume designer Susan Coates whom she had met at the LCF.
Via Coates she met Kenneth Branagh and worked as a wardrobe assistant to the actor on his big screen adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing, and then as a designer with Coates on Branagh’s film Peter’s Friends.
It was her work on 1998’s Lock, Stock, directed by Guy Ritchie and produced by Matthew Vaughn, that her designs first broke into mainstream fashion.
Christopher Laverty of Clothes on Film said her costume designs for the hit film had a huge influence on the fashion of the day. “You could not pick up a men’s magazine of the time without seeing some guy in slim trousers and a jersey polo shirt.
“Stephanie Collie invented this look, thus providing one of the clearest examples of how costume design can transcend a movie and become something more. We would go so far as to say Stephanie Collie helped define an era.”
She died aged 60 on October 26 at St Christopher’s Hospice in south London, after a terminal cancer diagnosis six month’s earlier. Her husband, director of photography Hubert Taczanowski died in June.
