Marit Allen, Brokeback’s Costume Designer, was born in Cheshire, England, September 17, 1941. She died in Sydney, New South Wales, November 26, 2007.

After an important career as a fashion magazine editor, Allen turned to motion pictures, where she worked with such prominent directors as Nicolas Roeg, Stanley Kubrick, and Mike Newell, who once described her as “a tiny delicate creature, like a fairy insect with jaws of steel. Once dug in, nothing would deflect her.”

Allen’s creative collaboration with Ang Lee spanned three films, culminating in Brokeback Mountain. Such was her commitment to the film that she washed all the jeans with stones and spent hours painting dirt and grime onto the cowboy shirts. Allen famously employed colors and patterns to tell the Brokeback story. Of Allen, Lee said, “Marit wasn’t simply the best at what she did; she was simply the best a human being could be. She clothed her characters not to cover them with a preconceived image, but to liberate them to express everything she dreamed they could become.”