Panto season is almost upon us and in Sheffield we are blessed with myriad productions, from the leading city centre theatres to smaller community ones much further afield.

But whatever the size of the show, at the heart of everyone will be the dame. These tours de force are always centre-stage and get the best lines, the funniest jokes – and the best costumes.

Someone who knows a thing or two about panto dame costumes is Scott McKenzie, the owner of bespoke costume hire business, Molly Limpet’s. He admits to having around 2,000 different dame costumes, all of which are original creations, many by his own hand, as well as all manner of outfits for theatre, film and TV productions.

By his own estimation, Scott has around 50,000 costumes housed in 20,000 sq ft of what was a former coach house and laundry on Barmouth Road, just off Abbeydale Road. It’s no wonder he outgrew his original retails premises on Chesterfield Road, Woodseats.

“I don’t like to send people the same thing,” he laughs. “That’s why I’m sat here on 50,000 costumes!”

It’s a fantastic space with a peaked glass roof casting lots of light onto a double-height room filled to the brim with racks and shelves of different outfits and accessories. Every bit of space is occupied.

As I enter through the front door I’m immediately greeted by a soft gorilla, a teapot and a huge duck. It’s like stepping into another world, albeit one filled with colour, sequins and just a touch of whimsy.

“There are days when people walk into this building and go ‘oh my’ and you realise how blind you’ve become to it,” says Scott. “I walk into this every day and go ‘this is work’.”

It may be work but it’s something that is very much a passion for Scott.

“It’s a lot of hours but you do it because you love it,” he explains. “This place is my whole life.”

Born in Hamilton, Scotland before moving to Canada and then Sheffield, Scott was inspired by costumes from a young age and puts a lot of his creativity down to being a ‘seventies child’.

“The last thing you wanted to do was let your parents know you were bored so you created stuff,” Scott reminisces. “There was always paper, there was always dried-up felt tip pens, bits of old fabric, bits of old wood, I was lucky to come from a very creative household.”

Scott started off by making puppets and eventually progressed to making full costumes. He’s completely self-taught, sketches every outfit before it’s made and often relies on his keen eye for colour. Although his sewing skills started to develop at home, it was at Woodseats Primary School that they really advanced.

“When I was about nine years old, I was a quite severe asthmatic so couldn’t go swimming with school,” he recalls. “I stayed and did sewing. There was a teacher there, Mrs Heslop, who taught me how to use a sewing machine. My puppets went from being hand-stitched to machine-stitched. I was proficient from a very young age.”

Including himself, Molly Limpet’s has a staff of eight, which Scott describes as a ‘family’. Working together, they hand-cut and hand-make every costume and accessory, whether that’s a dress, a suit or a specific head dress.

November to February is Molly Limpet’s busiest time of year with panto season kicking in and dominating. They work on around 70 pantomime productions around the UK each year, which can range from single costumes right up to whole ensembles.

Their biggest pantomime client is Manor Operatic Society, who perform at Sheffield City Hall each year. Scott has worked with them for almost 20 years and often supplies between 200 and 300 costumes, including those famed dame outfits.

“We’ve never repeated a dame’s costume [in that time],” beams Scott. “That comes from Brian [Platt]. The last time we Cinderella, they had three dames, that was a challenge!

“This year it’s Peter Pan and not only have they got their ordinary company, they’ve got 12 boys with three costumes each that they normally don’t have.”

The team are currently working hard behind the scenes to fulfil all orders and requests, as well as already starting to look ahead to 2027 and beyond.

Molly Limpet’s first opened in 2001 as a small shop on Chesterfield Road with just 75 outfits. Scott had been working as a computer broker when the opportunity to leave arose – he decided to pursue his lifelong passion and hasn’t looked back. This year he celebrated the business’s 25-year anniversary.

“It was the best decision I ever made,” says Scott. “It was the right time and the right thing.”

As the business grew so did the number of outfits and the need for more storage; the Woodseats shop was essentially a converted terraced house so had limited space. Extra premises were found before the move to Barmouth Road around 2011 but maintaining two locations – one at the top of Woodseats Road, one at the bottom – eventually proved to a logistical nightmare. When the premises next door became available, and with the increase in online orders, Scott made the decision to close the original shop in 2020 and move everything to the former laundry – but then Covid hit.

“Because we’d given notice on the shop we still had to move everything but couldn’t get a removal firm,” says Scott. “Nick [the general manager] and I moved the shop in his Corsa, up and down Woodseats Road half a dozen times.”

With theatres up and the down the country closed for almost 18 months, Scott used this time to undertake all those maintenance jobs he’d been putting off, including installing a specialist Ozone Room, which not only deep-cleans costumes but kills all bacteria, including Covid, too.

Cleaniless is really important to Molly Limpet’s and they ensure every costume is in the best condition it can be.

“Covid was hard but we got through it,” explains Scott. “But we found that one of things that worked really well was seeing people by appointment. Now we can give people really good one on one service. We know what they want, all the catalogues are online, they can see what we’ve got, send us their sizes, we can get it all ready for when they come in.”

As well as making costumes for theatre, TV and film, Molly Limpet’s has long been to go-to place for fancy dress hire and is something they still offer, although these are a far cry from the ‘packet’ costumes you usually find online.

“The word ‘fancy dress’ can be a dirty word, in the industry people immediately think of these things that are made for the American Halloween market,” says Scott. “That’s not what we’re about. [Our costumes] are made locally, sourced locally, and are sustainable.”

You’ll certainly look the part with a costume from Molly Limpet’s. Walking around the warehouse you’ll find Bridgerton-themed outfits – very popular at the moment – as well as everything from superheroes and steampunk to smart suits and seventies jumpsuits. It’s testament to the creativity and work Scott and his team put in.

Which begs just one final question – where does the name come from?

“Basically I wanted a woman’s name and I decided I wanted somebody who sounded like a performer, a character, someone from Charles Dickens or Shakespeare,” explains Scott. “At the time, my sister was pregnant and the bump was Molly. When she was born she was a bit clingy so my sister referred to her as ‘the limpet’.

“One day I went to my mum’s and still hadn’t got a name for the company and she said ‘hang on for ten minutes because your sister is coming with little Molly Limpet…’

“So Molly Limpet is my niece!”

To find out more, click here or find them on Instagram: @mollylimpets ​and @pantodames_uk