Biography.

Holder of the two highest honours in British drama – the Olivier Award for Best Stage Costume Design and the BAFTA Award for Best Film Costume Design – for more than 30 years Deirdre Clancy has played a key role in the development of modern theatre.

From her first successes with the world premiere of DH Lawrence’s Trilogy at the Royal Court in 1966 and subsequent world premieres of Edward Bond and Joe Orton plays Clancy has worked on nearly 200 productions in Europe, North America, Japan and Australia. She has designed for 18 productions at The Royal National Theatre, including the inaugural production of the present building in the presence of HM Queen Elizabeth, and worked with many major directors including Adrian Noble in his inaugural production as artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Among Ms Clancy’s many successes are costumes for Kiri Te Kanawa in Cosí Fan Tutte at the Metropolitan Opera New York, Ian McKellen in Wild Honey at the National Theatre and subsequent major US tour, Glenda Jackson in Strange Interlude in the West End and on Broadway and most recently Ms Clancy’s production design for A Doll’s House assisted Janet McTeer to win Best Actress in both the Olivier & Tony awards.

She won a BAFTA Best Film Costume Award for Mrs Brown featuring Dame Judi Dench and Billy Connolly, an Olivier Award for her work on “Loves Labours Lost.” In 1999 Clancy designed costumes for the 6 hour BBCtv classic serial of Wives & Daughters.

Ibsen’s “The Master Builder” starring Patrick Stewart played in the West End and she returned to the RSC with costume designs for All’s Well That Ends Well with Dame Judi Dench, for which she received another Olivier nomination, and a new production of Romeo & Juliet directed by Peter Gill. Also in 2004 Clancy designed costumes for The Marriage of Figaro in Los Angeles, and in complete contrast, the improvised film "Confetti" directed by brilliant new director, Debbie Isett.

Clancy has written and illustrated “Costume Since World War Two”, published by A & C Black. It has been described as ‘this essential reference book’, ‘an intelligent and sympathetic assessment of social phenomena’, ‘a wonderful book… with inspired drawings, encyclopaedic knowledge - easy and very accurate connections between dress and society…’

  Written with her husband Maxwell Steer, and currently published on the web is “A Costume Designer’s Workbook” which is a wide ranging exploration of all aspects of the art, craft, history and techniques, [both aesthetic and practical] of performance costume.(see link below)

Cressida RSC

Clancy’s finished designs are a notable feature of her work, and are featured in many private collections, conspicuously the Royal Court Collection at Louisiana State University where her work and career was the subject of a doctoral thesis by Dr Amela Baksic. Her designs have been published in various collections of, and writing about, British theatre design.

She has taught at Birmingham Institute of Art And Design, Wimbledon School of Art, Central St Martins and The Motley School and has presented talks and workshops on the history and the social history of costume to a number of societies including The Bristol Theatre Museum where she was invited to give the 50th anniversary lecture.

Clancy founded and runs The Cherubim Music Trust which raises money for Instruments for young musicians.www.cherubimtrust.org

She paints contemporary icons, visionary paintings and is also an accomplished portrait painter.

She lives in Tisbury with her husband, Maxwell Steer, who is a composer and piano teacher and has three grown up children.