Angels: The costume house that dresses the stars
- Published
The company has dressed some of the biggest stars of the small screen
It's a family firm that has been responsible for providing costumes for some of the most famous films and television shows including Lawrence of Arabia, Star Wars, Dr Who and Downton Abbey. Oscar-winning London costumiers Angels, which has dressed stars from Fred Astaire and Noel Coward to Madonna and Meryl Streep, is displaying costumes to celebrate its 175 years in the business.
Chairman Tim Angel's great-great-great-grandfather got his start by acquiring the clothes of the deceased and hiring them out
Chairman Tim Angel said his great-great-great-grandfather started the business in 1840 having arrived in Britain from Germany.
Founder Daniel Angel got his start in 1813 by acquiring the clothes of the deceased and hiring them out to Londoners.
He then opened a shop with his son Morris selling good-quality clothes and eventually began a clothes-hiring operation.
The family moved the business to Shaftesbury Avenue in the late 1880s where it forged a relationship with local theatres and, later, the film industry.
A jacket being "broken down" to make it look distressed
Angels won its first Oscar for costume design with Laurence Olivier's Hamlet in 1948.
In 2008 it bought the BBC's vast wardrobe of more than a million items.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Midweek, Tim Angel said he most loves period costumes, but added: "It's very easy to make fantastic costumes, period costumes but the most difficult thing is to get something that looks old and distressed and terrible."
He said that for Maggie Smith's costume in The Lady in the Van "there were six breakers down working on it and when you see it in the film most of that started out as reasonable clothing or new clothing. There's a real skill in that".
In the 1970s when Angels worked on the Cliff Richard Show, Mr Angel found having the same measurements as the singer was very handy.
Tim Angel says there is a "real skill" in making clothes look "terrible" for a costume
He said: "If the show was being recorded on a Friday, they wanted the measurements on the Thursday.
"I'd just grab everything and put it on."
In the 1970s Angels worked on the Cliff Richard Show
More than 100 costumes have been chosen from the Angels back catalogue for the exhibition, which will run until January.
The focal point of the exhibition will be costumes from the films including Titanic and Cate Blanchett's Elizabeth, but the show will also display fancy dress costumes.
More than 100 costumes have been chosen from Angels' back catalogue for the exhibition
"I was thinking we've actually been supplying costumes one way or another for different popular culture for three centuries," said Mr Angel.
"I mean the 1800s it was stage, stage then evolved to film and then film evolved to television. Three centuries is quite some time."
Dressed by Angels, external is at The Old Truman Brewery from 2 October 2015 until 3 January 2016