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From one blue suit in 2009 to Fortune, CNN, and the BBC.
We like to think that what we do and the costumes that we create are pretty newsworthy. Fortunately it seems that others do too. Since the first Morphsuit in 2009, we've received media coverage from some of the largest outlets in the world, and the Scottish business press has followed the company from a flat in Edinburgh to a £42 million business.
A selection of our favourites is below: the recent coverage first, then the archive back to the first interviews with the three founders. Links go to the outlet's own page wherever it is still online.
Co-founder Fraser Smeaton told Fortune what a year of swinging US tariffs did to a Scottish costume company whose biggest market is America.
Duties on our costumes moved from zero to 20%, to 50%, and briefly to 145%. The piece follows a $3 million duty bill, a 9% price rise, a shelved plan for a factory in India, and the reasons costume manufacturing is not coming back onshore.
Co-founder Gregor Lawson chairs the Halloween & Costume Association, the US industry body behind the Halloween & Party Expo and the Spooky Awards.
He has spoken for the industry since 2021, when US television covered the Association's warning of a costume shortage, and he led its twentieth anniversary in September 2025.
Business Leader, Talking Shop by Retail Sector, Edinburgh Business Stories, The High-Performance CEO Show
Guest
Fraser Smeaton
Fraser spent 2024 on the microphone, telling the founding story and the harder one about the year the novelty wore off.
Business Leader's Dougal Shaw (10 December 2024) covered the 2014 slump and the reinvention that followed. Talking Shop by Retail Sector (1 August 2024) asked how a craze became a multi-national business. Edinburgh Business Stories hosted him for episode 43, and The High-Performance CEO Show with Sebastian Schieke ran in March.
BGF, Scottish Financial News, Scottish Business News, PE Hub, Insider
In November 2024 the three founders bought back the minority stake BGF had held since 2012, and MorphCostumes became fully founder-owned again.
BGF invested £4.2 million in 2012 and backed the Digital Dudz merger in 2013 and the Fun Shack acquisition in 2019. At exit the company reported £42 million turnover for 2023 and 68 staff. Fraser thanked BGF for its "patience in some of the tougher times".
City AM, LDC Top 50 with The Times, Modern Retail, 365 Retail, Retail Sector, ChannelX, Party Worldwide
When
August to November 2024
Halloween 2024 brought the fullest round of business coverage since the early years, led by City AM's long interview with Fraser.
Jennifer Sieg's City AM piece (29 October 2024) traced the path from £1,000 a head to nearly £42 million turnover. LDC named Fraser in its Top 50 Most Ambitious Business Leaders 2024, published with The Times. Modern Retail, 365 Retail, and Retail Sector ran founder profiles, ChannelX filmed how we sell an item every two seconds at peak, and Party Worldwide's Halloween review reported revenue up just under 10%.
The Scotsman, Insider, ChannelX, About Amazon, Amazon Ads
Figure
£33.1 million turnover for 2022, a record
Record sales of £33.1 million put MorphCostumes back in the Scottish business pages, and Amazon told the story to its own sellers.
Scott Reid reported the record year for The Scotsman and the Edinburgh Evening News (1 September 2023). Fraser wrote for Insider on how Halloween turned a bright idea into a £33 million company, ChannelX covered the journey from £1,000 to £40 million, and About Amazon UK profiled the three friends behind the brand. Amazon Ads then made us a Rising Stars case study: 85% of sales through Amazon, sales up 26% in a year, customers in 12 countries.
Fun Shack acquisition, then Amazon takes the brand global
Reported by
The Scotsman, Insider, Party Worldwide, High Growth Scotland, Scottish Business News, Scottish Field
Buying Fun Shack, the Leeds costume maker with around £3 million in sales and 12 staff, took MorphCostumes beyond its own designs.
Hannah Burley for The Scotsman and Kenny Kemp for Insider reported the deal on 13 February 2019. In July Scott Reid covered Amazon's Dunfermline fulfilment centre taking the range worldwide, and in October Scottish Business News reported revenue up to £12.4 million with online sales expected to double. Scottish Field followed in January 2020 with "Morphsuits you, sir, with a business leap of faith".
In Halloween week 2015 CNN called Morphsuits a costume kingdom, and CNBC had Fraser on air about Halloween's growth beyond the United States.
Kieron Monks' CNN feature (22 October 2015) ran from a Dublin weekend in 2009 to 300 costumes sold in 25 countries and turnover above £10 million, with former NASA engineer Mark Rober's Digital Dudz along the way. CNBC followed on 30 October, and FashionUnited profiled the entrepreneurs behind the full-body spandex suit in November.
Journalists, producers, and podcast hosts: we are happy to talk costumes, Halloween, and building a business from Edinburgh. Send a note through our contact page and it will reach the right person.
