Morphsuits
| Private | |
| Industry | Fancy dress/costume |
| Founded | 2009 |
| Founder | Ali Smeaton, Fraser Smeaton, Gregor Lawson |
| Headquarters | Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom |
|
Key people
|
Smeaton, Smeaton, Lawson |
| Products | Morphsuits, Morphsuits Kids |
| Revenue | £4.5m |
| Owner | Smeaton, Smeaton, Lawson |
|
Number of employees
|
22 direct |
| Website | www |
Morphsuits is a company based in Edinburgh, Scotland. It distributes branded spandex costumes, based on the existing skin-tight garments, which cover the entire body. The company offers over 80 different designs. The company was founded by brothers Ali and Fraser Smeaton, and their flatmate Gregor Lawson. After a year of running the company, the trio left their jobs at Barclays, Procter & Gamble, and BT Group.
Expansion plans include children's sizes, recently introduced as MorphKids, and female-targeted accessories.
Morphsuits is a division of AFG Media, which includes menswear line Foul Fashion and golf wear line Royal & Awesome. They are working on a womenswear line.
According to the founders' account, they were inspired to create the company after either a stag weekend or a one-color costume party in Dublin, to which a friend of the founders was wearing a zentai bodysuit. At the event, the friend became somewhat of a celebrity, being bought drinks and posing for hundreds of pictures. After researching the fancy dress market, Smeaton, Smeaton, and Lawson invested £1,000 each, redesigning the suit for better vision., The original corporate website cost $300. A variety of materials, thicknesses of materials, and stitchings were tried. Fraser Smeaton said in an interview that they conceived "Morphsuit" as the name for their product because they believed "everyone who wore them morphed into a more fun version of themselves".
Beginning in May 2009, shipping of the first batch of 200 costumes was done from their flat. Balancing their day jobs and the company meant "a lot of 2 a.m. finishes" while running their business. As of August 2011, outsourcing had raised their indirect staffing to 200. As of late 2012, suits were manufactured in Shanghai.
The company received a boost to its sales when the 2009 British Lions tour of South Africa, at which eight fans wore red Morphsuits, was covered extensively by sports journalists and photographers.
Many early mainstream appearances of similar suits in North America were not their brand: The Green Men, two fans of the Vancouver Canucks NHL team, used Super Fan Suits, as do hip-hop group The Body Poets, while appearances on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia predate either brand's founding.
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Wikipedia