Jack the Lass

As a world-exclusive collection of Gentleman Jack costumes opens in Halifax, designer Tom Pye tells Stephanie Smith how he created 19th century looks for a 21st century audience.

Take a sweeping black coat, a rakish top hat, a rather provocative walking cane, and there she is. Anne Lister’s signature look is instantly recognisable, a clever visual shorthand for all that she represents – a woman who means business, refuses to conform and is more than a match for any man who tries to get in her way.

But when costume designer Tom Pye first read the script for Gentleman Jack, he worried that a modern audience might not understand how someone who wears corsets and skirts could be mistaken for a man (we see Anne Lister questioned about her gender in series one).

“That was the challenge I gave myself, to make that understandable,” he says. “We ended up going with this very masculine top half, and I wanted to make the skirts as boring as possible, so you didn’t notice them.

“There are a lot of mentions of how she walked around the place, so I wanted coats that looked great, with movement, that swish around, and a silhouette that’s really strong, and looks like a man from a distance.”

Tom researched men’s costumes of the period (the 1830s), while also bearing in mind that the real Anne, as she tells us in her diaries, did wear skirts, petticoats and corsets.

“It came from the diary, a lot of it, but then I exaggerated it,” he says. “I don’t think the real Anne Lister looked quite like that. It’s an exaggeration, and I wanted her to look cool. I wanted gay women to have an icon. It’s so rare that we see that kind of character on TV.”

Credit is also due to Suranne Jones, of course, who wears it so well.

“I love having fittings with Suranne,” Tom says. “She has opinions and is really collaborative and easy to work with. All her fittings involved her striding up and down the corridor to see how things moved. She has got an amazing figure and is such a joy to dress and tailor.”

This week, following last Sunday’s finale, a world-exclusive exhibition of costumes from Gentleman Jack series two launched at Bankfield

PICTURE: BBC/ LOOKOUT POINT/HBO/AIMEE SPINKS GIRLS’ NIGHT: Suranne Jones and Sophie Rundle dressed as Anne and Ann at a scene from last Sunday’s finale.

PICTURES: BRUCE ROLLINSON STRONG LOOKS: Main image left, Elinor Camille-Wood, collections manager/curator, puts the finishing touches to costumes of characters Ann walker and Anne at the Bankfield Museum, Halifax; above, Ann Walker and Marian Lister dresses; top left, Ann Walker wool cloak mont blanc trip; bottom left, Anne Lister great coat.