Functionalized collagen that incorporates exogenous compounds may offer new and improved biomaterials applications, especially in drug-delivery, multifunctional implants, and tissue engineering. To that end, we developed a specific and reversible collagen modification technique utilizing associative chain interactions between synthetic collagen mimetic peptide (CMP) [(ProHypGly)(x); Hyp = hydroxyproline] and type I collagen. Here we show temperature-dependent collagen binding and subsequent release of a series of CMPs with varying chain lengths indicating a triple helical propensity driven binding mechanism. The binding took place when melted, single-strand CMPs were allowed to fold while in contact with reconstituted type I collagens. The binding affinity is highly specific to collagen as labeled CMP bound to nanometer scale periodic positions on type I collagen fibers and could be used to selectively image collagens in ex vivo human liver tissue. When heated to physiological temperature, bound CMPs discharged from the collagen at a sustained rate that correlated with CMP's triple helical propensity, suggesting that sustainability is mediated by dynamic collagen-CMP interactions. We also report on the spatially defined modification of collagen film with linear and multi-arm poly(ethylene glycol)CMP conjugates; at 37 degrees C, these PEG-CMP conjugates exhibited temporary cell repelling activity lasting up to 9 days. These results demonstrate new opportunities for targeting pathologic collagens for diagnostic or therapeutic applications and for fabricating multifunctional collagen coatings and scaffolds that can temporally and spatially control the behavior of cells associated with the collagen matrices.