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Angels Fancy Dress, the 180-year-old costume business that dresses actors and celebrities, ‘priced out’ of West End

Family insist they are ‘still open for business’ as it moves in with its sister company in Hendon

March 4, 2020 10:03
An image of Angels costume store on Shaftesbury Avenue in the early 20th Century.
2 min read

Angels Fancy Dress, the 180-year-old costume company that has dressed the leading lights of the London’s West End, has been “priced out" of central London's Theatreland, moving its whole business to its Hendon warehouse.

The business, which has been run by the Angel family since it opened in 1840 and first moved to Shaftesbury Avenue in 1870, has outfitted Elton John, Victoria Beckham and Barbara Windsor, and has had costumes feature in films from Lawrence of Arabia to Star Wars.

Last Friday, it shut its Shaftsbury Avenue doors for the first time in 150 years.

Now it has moved its whole operation to the warehouse, where more than 1.5 million costumes are stored, after the lease expired and they found they could not afford the central London rent.