| Type | Costumiers and Fancy Dress Suppliers |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1840 |
| Founder(s) | Morris Angel |
| Headquarters |
London, UK 119 Shaftesbury Avenue, London WC2H 8AE |
| Website | http://www.angels.uk.com |
Angels is a supplier of costumes to the entertainment industry and general public. A British business that has supplied costumes to 27 films that have received Best Costume Oscars, the most recent being Marie Antionette, the company is unique as having been in the same family for six consecutive generations.[1]
In 2005, the company received international headlines after the rediscovery of the robe worn by Alec Guinness as Obi Wan Kenobi in Star Wars on the rails of its fancy dress division in London. The Obi Wan Kenobi cloak (with a reserve price of £60,000) was auctioned along with other film items from the Angels archive at Bonhams of Knightsbridge on March 6, 2007. It sold for $104,000.[2]
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Morris Angel started his business in 1840[3] in the Seven Dials area of London, near Covent Garden, selling second-hand clothing and tailors’ samples from Savile Row. Morris Angel's shop became popular with theatrical actors, who at that time had to purchase their own clothes and costumes for auditions and performances. It was a request from actors to hire rather than buy outfits for the duration of a performance which served as catalyst for the launch of the costume-hiring business that is the Angels trade to this day.
Morris Angel brought his son Daniel into the business in 1870, and seven years later, the family opened a shop on Shaftesbury Avenue (this shop is now the site of Angels Fancy Dress). By 1921, many shows in London's West End were being dressed by the Angel family.
With the advent of cinema, the Angel family made its second major diversification by supplying costumes to the new movie industry. The crystallization of the success of this move came when Angels supplied its first Academy Award-winning costumes to Laurence Olivier's Hamlet in 1948. To date, 26 Best Costume Oscars have followed for work that the company has undertaken on major international films, including Star Wars, Titanic, Lawrence Of Arabia, The Great Gatsby, The Aviator and Memoirs of a Geisha. In addition, two movies - The Queen and Marie Antoinette – featuring costumes supplied by Angels – received 2007 Oscar nominations for Achievement In Costume Design.
The business has two divisions: Angels The Costumiers, based in North London, which supplies the TV, film and theatre industries worldwide from its warehouse that contains over a million costumes spread across 5.5 miles worth of hanging rails. Angels Fancy Dress, on Shaftesbury Avenue, is a leading UK supplier of cheap fancy-dress costumes and together with the Angels website provides a large range of party outfits and accessories in the UK.
Tim Angel is the fifth generation of the family to work in the business and is Company Chairman (as well as being former Chairman of BAFTA). He is well known for his support of the TUC Anti Bullying at Work Campaign and has help set up a Rape Crisis Centre Tel Aviv. A long-running tradition in the Angel family is that the first son of each generation is named either Morris or Daniel. Tim (whose first name is Morris) joined his father, Daniel, in the family business in 1967. He now works from the Hendon Head Office with son, Daniel. Tim's daughter, Emma, runs Angels Fancy Dress.
Angels Fancy Dress has supplied fancy dress items to parties hosted by Sir Mick Jagger and Sir Elton John, and is regularly used by members of the Royal Family, though the controversial Nazi uniform worn by Prince Harry in 2004 did not come from Angels, as they have a policy of non-rental of politically sensitive costumes unless people are willing to pay. Recently there have been a large number of lay offs of staff and several departments - Millnery, Jewellery, etc have been closed down.
In the late 80s, Alexander McQueen worked at Angels.
Tim Angel is well known for his support of the TUC Anti Bullying at Work Campaign and has help set up a Rape Crisis Centre Tel Aviv. In September 2005, the original cloak worn by Alec Guinness as Obi Wan Kenobi in George Lucas’s Star Wars film was rediscovered[4] hanging on the rails at Angels Fancy Dress – having been unwittingly available to the general public for some time as a monk's-style robe, and having been used as a crowd scene costume in films including The Mummy. The provenance of the piece was confirmed by John Mollo, who created the item for the film in 1977, and received an Oscar for Best Costume.
The Obi Wan Kenobi cloak was auctioned by Bonhams in London on March 6, 2007 for £55,000.[5] It formed part of a sale of 400 lots from the Angels archive – alongside iconic costumes from James Bond, Dr Who,[6] and Highlander, and items worn onscreen by Ava Gardner, Erroll Flyn, David Niven.
For the first time in the history of the Bonhams auction house, members of the general public were able to try on items before placing bids.