Costume maker to stars dies

A former Adcote School pupil, who designed the costumes for a string of Hollywood movies, has died at the age of 66.

Marit Allen, a pupil at the school from 1951 and 1959, based the look of Mrs Doubtfire in the film of the same name, which starred Robin Williams, on founder Amy Gough.

After attending senior school at Adcote, in Little Ness, she was briefly a beatnik student in Grenoble before a rendezvous in London with a boyfriend her family regarded as unsuitable.

Her parents disowned her and she earned a living as a lift attendant in the Regent Street Jaeger shop.

But she then got her big break as a fashion journalist with Queen magazine between 1961 and 1963 and then for 10 years was at Vogue. Between 1974 and 1978 she ran a degree course in fashion journalism.She dressed all the cast in Bad Timing (1980), Eureka (1984), and The Witches (1990); and in The Hit (1984) as well as Little Shop of Horrors (1986), White Mischief (1987) and Thunderbirds (2004).

Ms Allen died of a brain aneurism on November 26. She leaves her children Lucy, Ben and Holly. Adcote School headteacher Ryan Jervis said: "Marit Allen will always be remembered at Adcote for her part in designing the costumes and basing the look of Mrs Doubtfire on Mrs Gough, the founder of Adcote School.

"Marit Allen is quoted in the Adcote prospectus as saying, 'There are things about Adcote which have been with me all my life. They have been a backdrop for all my adventures'.

"Our sympathy and condolences go to all her family and friends, many of whom are ex-Adcote pupils themselves."