Theatre and fashion designer with an eye for the f lamboyant
1952-2015
DICKY Longhurst, who died in Cape Town on his birthday at the age of 63, was a boy from the Free State who became an acclaimed and extraordinarily talented, creative and prolific fashion and theatre designer.
He designed costumes and sets for scores of drama, opera, musical and ballet productions. His work was bold, challenging and cutting-edge and won him several top awards and many nominations.
Theodore Arthur Longhurst was born in Kroonstad on November 16 1952. He studied fine art at the University of the Orange Free State and his professional career started with the Performing Arts Council of the Free State in 1971 as resident designer/stage manager.
In 1976, he joined the staff of the University of Cape Town Little Theatre. In 1978 he was invited to join Capab as part of the resident design team under the leadership of Peter Cazalet, who mentored him and took a close interest in his development.
He soon became Capab’s bright shining star. His costume designs were edgy for the day. They were very flamboyant but not in the big, puffy, bouffant Cinderella-gown way so beloved of other designers at the time. His work was svelte, interesting and beautiful.
He made costumes that ballerinas felt glamorous, sexy and gorgeous in while still allowing them the freedom to do what ballerinas do: move, be lifted and pirouette.
Often his costumes were completely off the wall.
In The Tales of Hoffmann, for which he won a Nederburg award, they were stunning in their madness, with skull caps and bizarre makeup.
While at Capab he also worked as a freelance designer with the other performing arts
WITTY, AMUSING AND SHY: Designer Dicky Longhurst councils around the country, as well as the Baxter Theatre, the Space Theatre, Market Theatre, Ballet West in the US, Artscape, the Fugard Theatre and Maynardville outdoor theatre, among others.
He won the Vita award and the Piers Nicholson award and received no fewer than eight Fleur du Cap nominations over the last years of his life.
In 1989, he set out on a new career path in the fashion world, establishing his own studio and label. He turned the fashion world around. His designs were completely different to what anyone else was doing.
The rich set loved his work and he was a regular at all the high-end fashion shows.
It was said he could make the perfect dress for the perfect woman, and she would love it forever.
He was twice honoured with the South African Fashion Award, and also received the J&B Rare Designers award.
As chairman of the judging panel for Smirnoff’s Young Designer competition, he served five years locally and internationally.
During this time he also worked on TV, film, international rock concerts and video productions.
In the mid-’90s the relentless pressures of the high-energy fashion world together with financial issues took their toll and he suddenly fled one day to his sister’s farm outside Bloemfontein where he painted for a few years. Nobody knew where he was and there were rumours that he had suffered a nervous breakdown.
He returned to Cape Town in 2002 as an art director in film, relaunched his fashion career and continued to churn out set and costume designs characterised by meticulous research and an eye for detail.
Just some of the more recent productions he designed for were The Secret Love Life of Ophelia, Noah, As You Like It, The Artscape 10-Year Gala Concert, My Fair Lady, Annie, I Am My Own Wife, Mother to Mother, Santa’s Story, The Taming of the Shrew, Kaptein se Tier, Broken Glass, M-Net’s Fiesta Awards, Spartacus of Africa, and Mimi Coertse’s 80th birthday gala concert.
He also taught design at local workshops.
Longhurst lived hard and liked to party. But as well as being witty and amusing, he was slightly shy and reticent. He kept himself going on booze and cigarettes.
Unusually for his world, he made few, if any, enemies. He rose above the bitchiness and pettiness. He was always quietly around the place observing, always with a cigarette, coming forward and quietly making some tiny adjustment to the frill on a strap.
He was highly complimentary. He would say things like “Darling, you look divine in that diamanté-studded unitard”, in a way that made the wearer feel he was not merely praising his own genius.
Shelagh Holliday, whose costume he designed for Noël Coward’s Fallen Angels, was, he told her, “gracious, beautiful, kind, generous and stylish — my Kate Hepburn”.
Much to the surprise of his friends, Longhurst married, briefly. He had a passion for Husky dogs and was forever posting pictures of them on his Facebook page.
Longhurst, who had emphysema, is survived by his son, Sean. — Chris Barron
He made costumes that ballerinas felt glamorous and sexy in