It’s pretty tricky to emulate the steely cool that Tommy Shelby (Cillian Murphy) exudes, but — at the very least — you can copy his haircut.
The close-cropped cut, with sleek, shaven sides and a thick mop on top, has been the gang leader’s signature style throughout the six-season series, and makes a thrilling cameo in the film sequel, Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man, out March 20 on Netflix.
The actual process for obtaining that exact hairstyle? More involved than you might think.
“It’s a very severe cut and there’s no way to test it out before seeing whether it works for you,” Nadia Stacey, the hair and makeup artist for Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man, tells Tudum. “So if you’re brave enough to do it, then get yourself a good hairdresser and go in stages!”
Tommy Shelby (Cillian Murphy) unloads on a scarecrow in Season 5, Episode 2 of Peaky Blinders.
Tommy Shelby (Cillian Murphy) delivers a speech in Parliament in Season 5, Episode 1 of Peaky Blinders.
It takes about 30 minutes for Stacey to bring the haircut to life, and she uses only one product: an old-fashioned pomade to style the locks into place. Tommy’s haircut — and the hair of his contemporaries — is inspired by the real-life styles of the men who returned home from World War I.
“They all have this extreme haircut, which was actually done to stop them from getting lice when they’re in the trenches, so they removed all the lower parts of the hair where fleas would gather,” Steven Knight, the creator of Peaky Blinders, says. “When they came back, they kept it. Men at the time were very, very meticulous about how they looked. They didn’t own much. They only owned themselves.”
Continues Knight, “You see photographs, and these working-class men with not very much money look like they’re going to a wedding all the time. Their boots are shining. Part of that was military training, but also just a way of getting respect.”
As the world of Peaky has evolved, with the old guard stepping back and a new generation of gang members at the forefront of the film, Stacey chose to tweak the hairstyles accordingly. After all, Tommy’s son Duke (Barry Keoghan), who has taken over for his father, runs a far less rigid ship.
“The general feeling and look is that they are much more disheveled and rough around the edges,” Stacey explains. “Tommy had run them with precision, and it showed in the clothes and the hair, but Duke’s gang are far from precise. “
Duke (Barry Keoghan) wears a newer version of the iconic Peaky Blinders haircut.
When it came time to cut Keoghan’s mane, Stacey took a multi-stage approach. “It was longer at the back at first as we were trying to find our new Peaky [style], but then we realized that the haircut is so iconic you have to lean into it,” she says.
For the record, Keoghan is pretty confident that he’s essentially been rocking the Peaky look long before he entered the universe.
“I’ve had the haircut for about six years, honest to God,” he says in an episode of the Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man companion podcast. “Anytime people would [say] ‘Oh, I recognize you, are you in Peaky Blinders?’, I’d be like, ‘Nope. I think you’ve probably got me confused with Cillian Murphy.’ ”
Watch all six seasons of Peaky Blinders and Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man on Netflix now.
