The Lost Robe

Here at Angels Fancy Dress we especially love Star Wars. We are a little bit biased as we’ve worked on three of the films (which are arguably the best ones). Episodes IV, V and VI; ‘A New Hope’, ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ and ‘Return of the Jedi’. For any Star Wars fan, Obi Wan Kenobi is hugely important, and for us that includes his cloak. Angels supplied the cloak to Sir Alec Guinness back in 1977 when Star Wars first hit the silver screen with its debut ‘A New Hope’. Once filming finished the cloak went on a little lost adventure of its own.

After Sir Alec Guinness, the cloak went on to a few new wearers, and worn in ‘The Name of the Rose’ in 1986, and in 1999 it featured in ‘The Mummy’. It misadventure began at the Shaftesbury Avenue store when it was mistakenly sorted into the monk’s robes. The cloak was then rented to the public as a casual fancy dress piece! Luckily on a routine stocktake staff noticed something was a little different about the item. The cloak eventually made it’s way back to it’s home at Angels amongst the most important items they own!

According to Tim Angel; “One of the guys was sorting this pile of monks’ robes and saw this brown one with an odd-shaped hood. He put it on and the manager said, ‘Oh my God, it’s Alec Guinness’s cloak from Star Wars. It’s unmistakable, an iconic piece. All this time we’ve been renting it out to customers wanting to hire a monk’s outfit for fancy dress. The robe would have come in just after filming on Star Wars finished and before it was released. It didn’t get any special treatment because at that point Star Wars was just another sci-fi film. No-one knew how big it would become.”

In 2005, Angels auctioned off some of the most valuable movie costumes and memorabilia from the collection. This included the salvaged Obi Wan Kenobi cloak which went for a massive £54,000!