We visit the largest privately-owned collection of costumes for film, theatre and television in the world.
An armoury. A jewellery department. A floor of military uniforms. A tailor and a production team. These are a few of the features of Angels Costumes, a seventh-generation family-owned costumier in Hendon.
Credited with some of the most famous costumes from Titanic to Star Wars and Oppenheimer, Angels is no small operation. The sheer scale is staggering. Eight miles of rails are packed with uniforms and clothing spanning centuries and containing more than one million wearable items.
The smell of old fabric and mothballs hangs in the air, prompting an unexpected nostalgia. From a walkway on the second floor, you can see just a sliver of what this warehouse holds.
One aisle is bursting with frills and flounces: flamenco, carnival, and cabaret. Another is twinkling with the bells and embroidery of traditional Middle Eastern dress. To the right, Georgian lingerie and brocaded lace. Below, a more modest rack – plain brown shirts.
The space brings to life the famous Shakespearean phrase: All the world’s a stage and each role is waiting to be played.
Walking past the first rail of military overcoats, Chris Silk, Costume Coordinator at Angels, explains, “costume really helps actors get into their roles. I did a fitting for a version of The Sound of Music, and there was a guy who came in to be fitted as one of the SS guards. I looked him up and down and thought ‘really?!’ As soon as he got into that uniform, his entire demeanour shifted. He totally became that character.”
We drift past Marie Antoinette’s ostrich feathers. “It happened again with someone else who was playing a Captain Hook-like character. It was incredible.”
I feel as if I have stumbled across a treasure trove from an alternate reality. There are multitudes of imaginary worlds and potential roles to be played, all colliding at once. A Narnia of sorts, except it’s a real, high-functioning logistical operation.
Angels is not an archive. Chris explains the difference: “At the end of the day, this is a theatrical costumier. Everything in here must be usable, to serve a purpose; otherwise, it’s just taking up space.”
On this scale, decisions must be made about what to keep, and every few years Angels will sell stock at auction: “Time moves. The collection is always going to grow. The uniforms department used to be double the size because we try and do every nationality [of military uniform].” I gawp, given that it is still an entire floor of the warehouse.
The collection is not attached to memorabilia either, so other businesses like Prop Store will come in and buy items connected to specific productions and actors. Chris tells me that he has found many a name tape and trinket in the pockets of costumes, remnants of a garment’s previous life.
While I am drawn to the potential secrets these pieces may hold, to Chris, it is simply inventory control. “It may have someone’s name in it, but ultimately it’s about whether the jacket works,” he says. “You’ve just got to make sure it comes back!”
Still, he points out a few items of staggering cultural gravity: a uniform from 1840, the year Angels was founded; a 1918 French tunic that survived the Great War; and a desert robe worn by Peter O’Toole, likely for Lawrence of Arabia. Tucked away nearby is the Queen’s coronation dress from The Crown and Ian McKellen’s fascist-inspired costume for Richard III.
A business this may be, but the collection serves as a monumental document of culture and time. Walking through row after row of garments, the sheer weight of history is tangible. Here, you brush past authentic Victorian tailoring and surviving wartime relics, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the meticulously crafted costumes that have defined modern cinema.
Far from a static archive, Angels operates as a living history — one that expands and shifts with every production. It is, ultimately, a working museum of play.
“We do get the fashion houses come in and do research. Take things, look at things, photograph things and then off they go, and then they produce something,” says Chris as we pass the French workwear, military jackets, and cargo trousers. These items, in particular, are examples of clothing that was once functional, has been updated and has now become fashionable for ordinary people to wear every day.
For luxury brands, these pieces are a mood board for predicting future trends. For collectors, they are memorabilia. But for the team at Angels, they remain highly practical objects. Ultimately, from days gone by and people past, clothing becomes a costume when used as a disguise, on or off-stage.
Chris assures me that historical accuracy is important, especially with military uniforms: “We owe it to the people that wore them to get it right.”
A huge amount of research goes into the creation of each costume, but without a research department of their own, each costumier liaises closely with designers on each production to nail accuracy. It is not always as simple as being historically precise, and directors and designers often request slight adjustments to suit each production.
“We’ve had requests for the British Victorian army. Predominantly red. But the director didn’t like red, so what can you do? That eliminates 85% of possible outfits. We have a think,” he goes on, “Riflemen. So, we do Riflemen in green. The same happens with badges. More than you’d imagine!”
On the set of Downton Abbey, the production team brought in former Guardsmen to ensure the military uniforms were up to standard. One spent three hours polishing Hugh Bonneville’s Sam Brown belt for his role as Robert Crawley. “It was like glass,” Chris laughs. “The cameramen couldn’t do it. It was too shiny. They had to dull it down because there were constant camera flares.”
Many of the costumes in Angels are real garments dating back to the time and people that wore them as actual clothes. However, with in-house alterations and tailoring, most costumes are adapted for each production, with new sizes and versions made to suit the cast, using originals as patterns.
“The priority is something that matches in look, feel and shape to the original. Sometimes you have to adapt materials, but otherwise we try to do the same as was done before.”
Chris pauses before we go into the fur room. “We have to do a disclaimer these days.” he says, pushing open the door. Inside, the temperature noticeably drops. The sheer volume of animal pelts, leather, and heavy coats deadens the acoustics, lending the space an insulated, eerie quiet.
On one level are coronation gowns of velvet and ermine fur; so extraordinary and regal to see in ceremony, there are several here. Behind these are seal skins, toothbrush-like in texture, and above, long coats suitable for Baltic weather.
He pops around the corner with a bearskin hat, “most of this stuff comes from the 60s and the animals would have been dead well before then. Some of these bearskins are getting on for 80 plus years.”
The volume and content of the collection is overwhelming and at times somewhat disconcerting, but also amazing. Where else could anyone find such an array of garments? Some beautiful, others questionable, but all serving as a way to play.
Stepping out of Angels, I think about the many characters that exist within each of us. The true power of the collection becomes clearer to me: it is a monument to human reinvention — a reminder of the endless variables of who we might have been, had we been born in a different era, place, or skin.
Costume, and clothing for that matter, is the oldest tool for storytelling. It is a way to play, to experiment, to learn, and to entertain. Humans have been dressing up for centuries, and as long as family businesses like Angels are here to house the wardrobe, we will continue doing so for centuries to come.
All images by Hebe Ide.