Joe Casely-Hayford, Pioneering Fashion Designer, Dies at 62

In 2009, having left Gieves & Hawkes, Mr. Casely-Hayford started working with his son on a luxury line, Casely-Hayford. It was the first time a father and son in modern fashion had actively collaborated at a creative helm, and the pair (who shared the same birthday) re-established the brand’s avant-garde aesthetic as “a comfortable sit between English sartorial style and British anarchy.”

To address a growing demand for custom suits, for celebrities as well as little-known clients, Casely-Hayford offered a made-to-measure service. Last fall, the label opened its first stand-alone store on Chiltern Street, in the Marylebone neighborhood of London.

Although the father-and-son duo had stepped outside of the traditional fashion schedules and cycles, which Mr. Casely-Hayford saw as a redundant mode of marketing and selling, his death just days before the start of London Fashion Week Men’s cast a shadow over the shows.

“His clothes were studiously street, like graffiti with tailor’s chalk,” his friend Mr. Ofili, the artist, said by email. “In these times, when visibility is by no means a measure of quality and creativity is measured financially, I cherish his rare and incisively experimental spirit.”

Mr. Casely-Hayford is survived by his sister, Margaret, chairwoman of Shakespeare’s Globe Theater; his brothers Peter, a film producer, and Gus, director of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art; his wife, Maria; his son, Charlie; and his daughter, Alice, the digital editor of British Vogue.

“It is impossible to believe that our beloved father is gone,” Alice Casely-Hayford said. “He taught us kindness, integrity, generosity, a strong work ethic and to always put family first. Though it was an unconventional upbringing, growing up in our parents’ studio, it was incredibly exciting to see them build an empire, bring a bold vision to life, and inspire and ignite passion in so many people.”