Those of you who read this blog regularly know that the name Angels
Costumier tends to come up quite a lot. They are the largest costume
house in the world, and a huge majority of the costumes featured here
originated from their stock. Recycled Movie Costumes has always wanted
to know a bit more about how the process works, and Jeremy with Angels
Costumier was kind enough to answer some questions.
Tell us a bit about the history of Angels Costumier and its companies.
In 1813 Daniel Angel, a young tailor from Frankfurt arrived
in London with barely a word of English. He headed for Seven Dials and
set up a barrow selling second hand clothes. He later opened a second
hand clothing shop with his son Morris providing
a service for those who wanted good quality clothes at reasonable cost.
Later, when an actor asked if he could rent a suit rather than buy it,
the hire business took off. Morris and his son Daniel (3rd generation)
moved to premises on Shaftesbury Avenue in
the late 1880’s and Daniel opened a bespoke department in this new
respectable environment. The quality and style of the clothes was high,
and soon theatrical managers were seeking his services for their West
End productions. As the film industry was beginning,
Angels began a relationship with the film industry that lasts to this
day. The Shaftesbury Avenue location ensured that Angels dressed every
show of distinction in the West End, including musicals Showboat, The
Girl Friend, The Co-optimists, The Year of
Grace, No, No Nanette, and plays such as Journey’s End, and The Truth
Game. In the late 1920s, after Madame Tussauds was destroyed by
fire, Angels re-dressed all the waxworks and provided uniforms and
livery for the staff. From 1940 to 1945, Angels provided
dress uniforms for the Free French Army and for ENSA, the army
entertainment troupe. In 1948 Hamlet starring Laurence Olivier won the
Best Achievement in Costume Design Oscar® at the Academy Awards. Angels
have gone on to supply costume to another 36 Best
Costume Oscar® winners. In 2015 Angels supplied costumes to four of the
five films nominated for Oscars® in Costume Design and all five films
nominated for the Film Costume Design at BAFTA: The Grand Budapest
Hotel; The Imitation Game, Into The Woods, Mr Turner,
The Theory of Everything and Maleficent. Angels acquired Bermans in
1992, moving the professional hire for film, TV and theatre to Camden.
This allowed the original Shaftesbury Avenue premises to be opened as
Angels Fancy Dress; giving over almost one acre
of storage space to public fancy dress hire. The company remains a
family enterprise with the 7th generation of the Angels family now
working in the company.
We frequently see gowns that have been changed in minor ways to fit a
different actress, but sometimes we also see costumes that are very
heavily altered from the original form that they came in – trim being
added or removed, etc. What happens in those cases? If a designer rents a costume, are they free to make alterations as
they wish? What are the rules there?
Most of the time we prefer to make all changes ourselves. We have an
alterations workroom with people are geniuses at what they do they can change
the size of a costume without having to cut away any material so that we
can use it in the future for different
shaped actors. If a customer wants to alter the outfit themselves on
set there are very simple rules. Your changes have to be reversible, you
can not cut away any material and you are not allowed to make
alterations that will change the aesthetic of the costume
(e.g. no dying it a different colour).
What are some of the oldest costumes that you’ve seen still being
rented out today? Do you think that is a testament both to the quality
of their original designer, as well as the care that Angels has given to
each garment?
The oldest costume that we still hire out is a Blue dress from 1850, it
actually features as an infographic in our book, the material used to
make it is very heavy and therefore has been easy to repair over the
years, but the ability to reuse the costume so
much has to be put down to the abilities of our alterations
department. We do have older items in our warehouse but they are for
research only the oldest item I have seen are a pair of shoes from the
16th Century and they are absolutely tiny.
Does Angels rent out to the general public for costume parties? We saw an instance recently where model Alexa Chung was able
to wear one of Kiera Knighley’s gowns from The Duchess.
We also do rent to the general public. Our shop on
Shaftesbury Avenue has 4 floors of costumes aside from Packet costumes you can find on Fancydress.com
they have hire costumes, and these hire costumes come from our main
stock, so if you were to hire a robin hood costume from us, there is a possibility it could be Kevin Costner’s from Prince of
Thieves. Or if you were to hire a period dress it could have been Kiera
Knightley’s from The Duchess. The famous story where this has happened
is there have been several school nativity plays
that have hired a cloak from us and we eventually realized that the
robe being hired out was Alec Guinness’ Obi Wan Kenobi robe!!
How are gowns chosen and pulled for use on a production?
There are several ways that shows are put together. If we
are pulling it for the designer, our staff will meet with the designer to
find out what they are looking for, they will put a few looks together
and either send the designer photos. Or if
the designer is in our building, show it to them, and once they are happy we
will continue pulling stock based on the measurements given to us or
taken by us of the cast/extras. If the designer’s staff are pulling
outfits they will pretty much do the same as we would
but when they are finished pulling everything we still need to go
through it all to book it out.
How do gowns get put into your collection? If a costume designer
has made new gowns for a film, do the films tend to sell them to you
afterwards to help with production costs?
That is one way, yes. If the production has made a dress and wants
some money back after the production, they will offer it to either us, or
other interested parties. Sometimes we will work out deals that will
mean we can get the costumes they make
at the end of the production in return for a reduced cost on what they
are hiring from us. Sometimes we will buy an entire collection. For
example, the BBC costume department! That’s how you grow your stock. Or the other way our stock grows is when we make
for ourselves. We might identify we are short of one type of dress or
suit and will make several for us. Or sometimes we will find a costume
that is really good for productions but is damages beyond repair, so we
will then make a new one and add that to the
collection.
We’ve heard a bit about a new costume exhibit Angels is putting on.
Can you tell us a little more about it, and what costumes we might
expect to see?
The exhibition uses costumes to take visitors on a journey
through Victorian London up to the present day. Visitors have the
opportunity to experience first hand 175 years of Angels, and see
extraordinary pieces from Film, TV and Theatre. The exhibition starts
from when Daniel first came over to the UK in 1813, and how the business
changed to where it is today. Throughout the exhibition are original
costumes featured on some of the biggest films to date, recreations of
truly iconic costumes that have not been seen
before, and general costumes to highlight a period or a genre. Costumes
that feature are Benedict Cumberbatch’s Hamlet costume,
costumes worn by Meryl Streep, Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett, costumes
from Star Wars, Downton Abbey, Dr Who and many
more. In fact, the blue dress I mentioned earlier from 1850 that is
featured in the exhibition as well. We have tried to create an
experience that tells the story of one family business that has
witnessed the growth of the entertainment industry, and what part
it has played in that industry, while highlighting some truly wonderful
designed costumes, as well as explaining how Angels works as a company -
what we do and how we fit into the industry.
What is your favorite film costume in the Angels collection, and why?
That is a tough one, as there are so many items I have come across that
have meaning to me. Any costume from Mrs. Henderson Presents mean a lot to
me, as that was my first ever film. I was blown away when we found Rowan
Atkinson’s officers uniform from Blackadder
Goes Fourth, as that TV series was one of my favourites growing up. A very random one is an elf costume from Santa Claus the
movie (the one with Dudley Moore) which I used to watch every Christmas. The fact we did the costumes always made
me smile. It also helped that one of the actors who was an elf in the film also worked at Angels. However one costume
that I always love seeing is actually not a famous film costume. It is a recreation of the Queen’s Coronation
dress that we made for Harrods. It is just simply stunning. There are
over 4000 hand attached beads on this dress. We never thought it would
be hired out again, as it was made as close to the original as possible,
and we never thought anyone would have the same
size and shape as the queen. But a current production has hired it to
use as they have the queen’s coronation in their series, and the actress
playing the queen fitted into the dress perfectly! The dress is also
featured in our exhibition and we explain about
the making-of process of it in our book too.
E-mail Submissions: submissions@recycledmoviecostumes.com
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Note: Angels does offer a tour if you want to learn more. If you live in the area, I highly suggest doing so (and e-mailing Recycled Movie Costumes and telling us about it, please!) . Recycled Movie costumes is trying to interview other costume houses as well, and will post as they become available.