They had a certain style, which included a peaked flat cap – but the idea that they wore razor blades in their hats may be an urban legend. The concept appears in Birmingham author John Douglas' 1977 novel A Walk Down Summer Lane but the story is likely apocryphal.
Members of this gang dressed in a particular fashion: tailored jackets, waistcoats, overcoats, and topped with a signature flat cap. The name “Peaky Blinders” was the nickname given to the gang because they stitched razor blades into the peaks of their caps to be used as a weapon in fights with competing gangs.
In the show, a gang member can headbutt an opponent and blind or injure him with the razor blade sewn into his cap. While the Peaky Blinders were a real gang, this is not where they got their name. Razor blades were quite the luxury item at the time and not something that was mass-marketed.
Cillian Murphy's character Tommy Shelby wears a peaked cap, made from the same flecked tweed as his grey suit, in Peaky Blinders.
When they return to the house, they realise that there's a pair of wire-cutters, a reference to their war days, which means that there's a hand grenade somewhere around there.
"They used their hats with razor blades sewn in to rob people. That's what a Peaky Blinder was. "When they hit someone or headbutted someone on the nose while wearing one, it would cause their victim temporary blindness."
British author John Douglas, from Birmingham, said hats were used as weapons in his novel A Walk Down Summer Lane – members with razor blades sewn into their caps would headbutt enemies to potentially blind them, or the caps would be used to slash foreheads, causing blood to pour down into the eyes of their enemies, ...
The iconic Peaky Blinders suit is more commonly known as a tweed suit.
Tommy and others are seen smoking Opium throughout the series as a coping mechanism. over 5000 cigarettes were smoked on the show. Characters drink frequently on-screen, become drunk, and act violent and clumsy. One character has an opium habit, and a 10-year-old child smokes a cigarette on-screen.
The hat of choice of one of our all-time favourite Peaky Blinders characters: Alfie Solomons' signature pork pie hat.
Aggressive outbursts, panic attacks, depression and night terrors were all symptoms of what was then know as shellshock, a condition more recently understood to be Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
They had a certain style, which included a peaked flat cap – but the idea that they wore razor blades in their hats may be an urban legend. The concept appears in Birmingham author John Douglas' 1977 novel A Walk Down Summer Lane but the story is likely apocryphal.
Tommy jumps up, grabbing Abby, and wrestles for her gun, but Lev shoots him in the leg, enabling Abby to knock him down and shoot him in the head. However, the angle he is shot at means the bullet merely grazed the orbital plate-temple of Tommy's head, resulting in him only losing an eye and some mobility.
False: The Blinders sewed razor blades into their caps.
It's a common urban legend about the real gang, but not an entirely accurate one. As the story goes, these caps were used to smuggle weapons into places where they could be used to slice and blind the Blinders' enemies.
The Peaky Blinders name
A popular theory is that the name originated from the gang's practice of stitching razor blades into the peaks of their trademark flat caps. Flat caps were often referred to as 'peakys' at the time, and the razor blades would cause damage to the face when victims were headbutted.
The gang were able to control Birmingham and exercise their will for almost twenty years, in one of the largest criminal enterprises of the nineteenth century. As part of their expansion, they extended their criminal portfolio to include smuggling, robbery, bribery, forming protection rackets, fraud and also hijacking.
Cillian Murphy, who plays Tommy, was asked about this very topic during an interview with BBC Radio One. The actor explained: "That comes from the fact that the cigarettes, we cut the filter off or do we leave the filter on I cannot recall, but anyway if you don't rub them across your lips initially, they will stick.
One of the major symptoms of PTSD is "recurrent, unwanted distressing memories or dreams of the traumatic event."[1] A number of characters in Peaky Blinders appear to suffer from it, the most notable ones being Thomas Shelby, Arthur Shelby Jr., and Danny Whizz-Bang.
Smoking is a big part of most scenes, and all of the cigarettes were real. "I asked the prop guys to count how many we use during a series and it's 3,000," Murphy told BirminghamLive.
Thomas Shelby's texturised crop is short on the back and sides of the head with a slightly longer length on top. Ask the barber: Ask for a "crop" but indicate you would like to have the fringe sweeping to the right or left and short around the back and sides with extra length left on top.
The first season of Peaky Blinders is set in 1919: When we meet gang leader Tommy Shelby (Cillian Murphy), he's riding through the unpaved, muddy streets of Birmingham on a horse. World War I has finally come to a close after four bloody years in the trenches, heralding the dawn of a new age.
Tommy Shelby and his kin are Irish-Romani (sometimes spelled Romany) Gypsies, a unique cultural and ethnic group present in Britain since the 1500s. The award-winning Peaky Blinders is directed by Steven Knight and has run for 6 seasons, the most recent hitting U.S. Netflix in June 2022.
Tommy Shelby (Cillian Murphy) would be inspired by Thomas Gilbert, or Kevin Mooney (he changed his name a few times throughout his life), one of the most prominent members of the gang. Some of the most well known Peaky Blinders were Harry Fowles, or Baby-Faced Harry, Stephen McNickle and Earnest Haynes.
Peaky Blinders fans were left furious after Tommy Shelby had steamy sex with. The barnstorming episode featured a bomb, torture and dramatic plot twists, but it was Tommy (Cillian Murphy's) romp with Nazi sympathiser Diana (Amber Anderson) that had viewers up in arms.
The phrase was inspired by John Milton's “Paradise Lost” where the “red right hand” represents divine vengeance.