Susan Margaret "Sue" BlaneMBE is best known for her costume designs for both The Rocky Horror Show and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. With her designs for the RHPS, Blane is credited for creating the look that became the template for punk rock fashion.
Life and career
Blane studied costume design at Wolverhampton College of Art and at the Central School of Art and Design in London, finishing in 1971. Before The Rocky Horror Show in 1972, Blane had already met Tim Curry in 1971 at the Citizen's Theatre in Glasgow, where they were both involved in a production of Jean Genet's The Maids. Blane also designed the costumes for other Rocky Horror productions, including the 1975 Broadway production and film, and created the costume designs for the sequel, Shock Treatment. Since The Rocky Horror Picture Show was released, fans have been recreating the designs as part of screenings audience participation. A common audience "callback" at Rocky Horror showings plays off the similarity of the name "Blane" to the word "blame." When a character in the film says someone – or something – is "to blame," audience members shout, "No, Sue's to Blane!" It is also common for audience members to shout out Blane's name during "Don't Dream It", making the character Frank N. Furter seem to say, "I wanted to be dressed by Sue Blane". Blane also created the costume designs for Jonathan Miller's The Mikado for the English National Opera. Other opera credits include David McVicar's Carmen for Glyndebourne, Keith Warner's Lohengrin for the Bayreuth Festival, Lulu at the New National Theatre, Tokyo, Disney's The Hunchback of Notre-Dame : The Love for Three Oranges ; The Three Musketeers ; Capriccio ; Guys and Dolls ; Into the Woods ; Porgy and Bess and La Fanciula del West, with Plácido Domingo. Sue's many production design credits include The Relapse, voted Best Design by What's On readers,, The Nutcracker and Alice in Wonderland for the English National Ballet; Midsummer Night's Dream ; Sylvia ; King John, The Learned Ladies, and Antony and Cleopatra all for the Royal Shakespeare Company; Barber of Seville ; The Duenna and Thieving Magpie ; Christmas Eve and Lee Miller. Her designs also feature in a new ballet for English National Ballet based on Oscar Wilde's novella of The Canterville Ghost conceived and choreographed by Will Tuckett.
Honours
She was nominated for a 1997 Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dance for her design of English National Ballet's Alice in Wonderland and a BAFTA nomination for Peter Greenaway's The Draughtsman's Contract. Her current designs can be seen in Dance of the Vampires in Vienna, directed by Roman Polanski. Blane received an MBE in 2006.
