Irish fashion designer Paul Costelloe died on Saturday following a short illness, his family said. He was 80.
"He was surrounded by his wife and seven children and passed peacefully in London," the family said in a statement.
A regular at London Fashion Week since its formative days in 1984, he leaves behind a successful company that today spans womenswear, jewellery, menswear, homeware and accessories. He showed his last autumn/winter collection at London Fashion Week in February.
Having studied at Grafton Academy of Fashion Design, he later relocated to Paris to study at the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture.
One of his earliest roles was as design assistant to Jacques Esterel, before he was recruited by Marks & Spencer to retune its offerings for the Italian market. In later years, he would design uniforms for several entities, including Delta Airlines, British Airways and the 2004 Irish Olympic Team for the Athens Games.
Costelloe will always be best known, however, for being the personal designer to Diana, the Princess of Wales, and helping create her world-famous style.
One of a handful of designers who worked regularly with the princess, he first came to her attention in the very early 1980s and was appointed her personal designer in 1983. He continued to dress her until her death in 1997.
Known for his tailoring, patterned fabrics and a penchant for bold shoulders – from oversized ballooning to crisply masculine – Costelloe helped craft Diana's famous wardrobe.
For her visit with the then Prince Charles to Muscat in November 1986, for example, he dressed her in a patterned, mid-length dress finished with a wide pilgrim collar. Drop-waisted, it was modest and strikingly colourful, and hit a perfect note.
That trip also gave rise to "Diana's Viewpoint", which commemorates the spot where the Princess admired the view over the rugged Akhdar mountains, and that now sits within the Anantara Al Jabal Al Akhdar Resort.
As the most photographed woman in the world, Diana quickly learned the power of fashion, and Costelloe was one of the designers who helped steer her evolution from naive, pretty young Princess in the early 80s, to the power-suited tour de force she became following the very public collapse of her marriage in the 1990s.
His suits offered a keenly tailored armour against the barrage of attention that followed her every move, such as a lean raspberry jacket, buttoned to the neck; a blue and pink polka dot dress with a square shouldered jacket, or a elegant skirt suit in cream, and navy blue polka dots. She turned to Costelloe to create outfits worn to state events, to meet overseas dignitaries and attend countless day time events across Britain.
Always beautifully tailored and mixed with an almost playful sense of colour and patterning, the Irish designer accompanied the Princess as her confidence and independence grew, post-divorce.
In an interview with the Irish Examiner in 2020, Costelloe explained that Diana, "became more aware of her strengths and began to power-dress more as her marriage began to break up. I dressed her when she was at her sweetest – she was wonderful.”
