About Us

Read all about us! It all started with a Red Elephant!

Welephant and Alison

With over 30 years’ experience in creating bespoke character costumes, Costumes With Character leads the field in producing premium quality costumes. Based in northwest England near Stockport, we produce and ship costumes worldwide for our clients.
Our story started in 1986, when Liz Milnes our founder began her mascot-making career.
Her first contract as Situation Clothing was to create the well-known and loved Welephant, the bright red elephant mascot for fire brigades in the United Kingdom. Welephant was a great success. Producing him cemented Liz’s place in the competitive character costume and mascot industry. As a result, Costumes with Character Ltd was established in 2001.

Today, we are a team of passionate and creative individuals from various backgrounds in prop and costume construction. From theatre-based work, to costume design, pattern making, model-making, sculpting, to illustration and fine machine work, we are a varied bunch!

Many of us have worked together for over 20 years, throughout which time we have developed a signature style unique to Costumes with Character.
We thrive on creative challenges and celebrate the successful creation of each character we are entrusted to create.
Find out more about what we do by checking us out on social media, and reading our blog.

The little girl in the red dress in the photo who won the colouring competition is now our Operations Director, Alison.

Meet the Team