Few television series can claim to have inspired a fashion movement. But Peaky Blinders isn’t just any television series.

In the series and its new film adaptation, Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man, Tommy Shelby’s (Cillian Murphy) Birmingham gangsters are sharp in every sense of the word — intelligent, dangerous, and dapperly dressed. Those outfits haven’t gone unnoticed by audiences. UK department store John Lewis reported that flat-cap sales skyrocketed 83% between 2016 and 2017, and the Peakys’ waistcoats and long overcoats inspired a full-on fashion festival.

But when we meet Tommy Shelby again in The Immortal Man, he’s not quite the fashion icon we remember. “We very much didn’t want Tommy to be the silhouette, the Peaky three-piece suit and the cap, at the beginning,” Murphy tells Netflix. “We wanted him to be kind of unrecognizable as Tommy — still stylish but just like he’s hung up the costume.” This Tommy is a broken man, left reeling by the losses he endured over the six seasons of the original series.

So costume designer Alison McCosh, who worked on Seasons 4–6 of Peaky Blinders and the film Steve, brought Tommy back down to earth. “We start off in a very different place for him,” she tells Netflix. “He’s in such a different place emotionally now, so we have to show that and reflect that in the costumes.”

“We’ve brought in more of a silk midnight turtleneck for him, and that would be underneath the cardigan, which kind of feels as if it’s his comfort piece at home.”

Alone in a drafty mansion, Tommy is dressing for warmth and comfort, not for war. “We’ve brought in more of a silk midnight turtleneck for him, and that would be underneath the cardigan, which kind of feels as if it’s his comfort piece at home,” McCosh says. “That’s his first look: a shawl-collar cardigan that we made for him, all hand done, beautiful cashmere.”

Meanwhile, in Birmingham, the Peaky Blinders are back in action with a new leader: Tommy’s illegitimate son, Duke (Barry Keoghan). This is the next generation of Peakys, with the same brutal edge but even fewer principles. Their costuming is just as clean, but times have changed. “Rather than the tie and the usual that you see the Peakys in, we decided to have the open-neck collar, a little bit of color in the shirts, a little bit more life, a little bit more youth to it,” McCosh said. “We did the scarves and the jewelry; we took original pieces of jewelry and we manufactured them. Barry really liked that touch.”

Keoghan initially pushed for an even bigger contrast. “I wanted to make it a bit more cheeky,” he tells Netflix. “I wanted shorter legs, and I went so far that we ended up going back to what Ali suggested at the very start. I needed to go there to see it and go, ‘OK, that’s not [it].’ ”

Tommy is drawn back into action when his son allies himself with the treasurer of the British Union of Fascists. Duke isn’t a dyed-in-the-wool fascist; he’s a nihilist, cast aside by his family and happy to join the cause of anyone who will listen to him. Into this fatherly void steps Beckett (Tim Roth).

“We took original pieces of jewelry and we manufactured them. Barry really liked that touch.”

McCosh costumed Roth to appeal directly to Duke’s bruised sense of abandonment. “He wanted to play it slightly, as he would say, [as] a geography teacher, which would play into the vulnerability of Duke,” McCosh says. “We chose shirts that were slightly softer, so that when he wanted to convince Duke to do what he needed him to do, he [would] feel like a father figure, so to speak.” 

Duke’s flirtation with fascism finally pushes Tommy out of retirement — and into his classic Peaky look, complete with the razor-blade cap that gave the Peakys of the original series their name. As Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ irrepressible “Red Right Hand” plays, Tommy rides back into Birmingham on horseback, dressed to the nines. “We’re calling it the ‘I’m Back suit’,” McCosh says. “It’s just more of a rich texture this time around, and the coat that he’s chosen is midnight, and the cashmere’s so beautiful — it looks like a waterfall.” 

For Murphy, suiting up was like coming home. “When you put on the full Tommy gear, it’s like body armor or something,” he said. “When you pull the cap down, you feel invincible.”

Unfortunately, Tommy’s suit isn’t long for this world. Upon confronting his son, Tommy hauls him into a pigpen, where both of their beautiful outfits are well and truly soiled. The Peaky kingpin has never hesitated to get his hands dirty, but in the pen, he and Duke take it to another level, exorcising all of their familial enmity in one all-out brawl.

It was a fitting way for Murphy to get into the swing of things, filming the scene on his first day back in the role. “It was mad,” Murphy says. “My first thing on set was rolling around in pig shit with Barry. It was hard: When you stood up with mud dried on, it was like adding three stone to the costume.” 

The dustup was difficult for McCosh to watch. “Tommy has that beautiful cashmere coat, and he goes into the pigpen,” McCosh says. “I was like, ‘OK, I don’t know if I can watch that.’ We’ve always seen him so controlled and perfect, and then he came out of there covered in pig shit.”

“I was like, ‘OK, I don’t know if I can watch that.’ We’ve always seen him so controlled and perfect, and then he came out of there covered in pig shit.”

But of course, just as it does for Tommy and the Peaky Blinders, the work continues in spite of the mess. “We shoot out of sequence, so we had to let the coat and everything dry,” McCosh says. “We couldn’t use the original ones, of course, because it was actual dirt, but we had to use paint to make it look like it was the actual suit and coat that he fought in.” Might we soon see soiled overcoats taking British fashion by storm? With Tommy Shelby, you never know.

Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man is now streaming on Netflix, along with the original series. 

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