Caroline Oakes was determined to make a name for herself
Fashion designer Caroline Oates in her Liverpool studio
A woman who began with “next-to-no money” at Greatie Market has been outfitting Liverpudlians for many years now. Growing up in the 70s, Caroline Oakes, from Aigburth, would marvel at the stylish ensembles her older sisters donned for their evenings out.
Drawn to the world of fashion and cinema from an early age, she used to plead with her mother to modify her outfits and found inventive ways to carve out her signature look. Following her training at Liverpool City College during her teens, Caroline turned a tidy profit with her stall at the Great Homer Street market.
The 55-year-old, who lives on Lark Lane, told the ECHO: “I started with £50, that was all I had to my name. It was money I had pulled together and saved for myself. I was buying materials, making clothes, selling them, and buying more materials with the little profit I made. I was mainly selling them to the girls I worked with at the C&A store.
“But I gave it up so I could focus mainly on clothes. I went to Greatie Market, and I had been going there all my life, so I knew which parts were busy and which parts weren’t. The market used to be outside all these shops on the other side of where it is now, and it spilled out onto the road.
Fashion designer Caroline Oates is constantly changing her brand’s aesthetic to keep up with the times
“I wasn’t happy with where I was put on the market. So I asked the lady who owned the sweet shop if I could stand outside with my clothes. She said I could if I paid her a tenner.
“I was there every Saturday, not even with a proper stall, beside a shutter with a bedroom rack that had no wheels and a mannequin that was wonky, which I got out of a junk shop. But if I wasn’t cheeky enough to ask, I would never have gotten to where I am today.”
After finding her residential spot, Caroline would take clothes into college with her to use the sewing machines, as she couldn’t afford her own. Fast-forward to today, and Caroline despite the increased demand and scale of her business, maintains her original mission – to make Merseyside women feel fabulous.
She said: “I’m still the same person with the same passion and same love. I’ve been doing it for around 35 years now, so I’m an old-timer, but I’m still doing the exact same thing, really. It’s been my bread and butter.”
Designer Caroline Oates now has a studio just off Bold Street
Caroline, most notably, made a name for herself by dressing Liverpool’s clubbers heading to top venues like 051, The State, Cream, and The Barcelona club in the 1990s. While she still creates designs, from her studio just off Bold Street, for clubbers and festival-goers, in recent years, Caroline’s brand has continued to evolve with her clients and their age.
Caroline prides her designs on being versatile and encourages customers to get a timeless fashion piece that they can wear again and again – “slow fashion, rather than fast fashion”, as she puts it.
With a core group of customers in Merseyside, Caroline also has clients from Manchester, Lancashire, Cheshire, and the US. A design can take up to two weeks to make, but Caroline said her most popular design at the moment is anything that includes the kaleidoscope print.