Careaux: Finally. A Luxury, Inclusive Dress That Actually Fits You.

Manchester-based #fashion startup, Careaux is changing how women approach their wardrobe(s), with their unique range of inclusive dresses that divide(s) into a perfectly fitted top and skirt, thanks to their revolutionary new waist-zip concept.

Careaux was founded on the values of innovation and inclusivity, and their dresses include a zip around the waist, meaning that each dress separates easily into a perfectly suited top and skirt for women of all sizes.

90% of women complain that they struggle to find clothes that perfectly fit them, and until now, the fashion industry hasn’t catered to this problem/need, whereas Careaux has hit the nail on the head.

With a Careaux dress, you can have, say… a size 12 top, and a size 14 bottom, and their unique invention ensures that these mixed combinations will always fit together, perfectly.

In response to this, Careaux’s Co-Founder, Rachel Beattie, enthusiastically explained: ‘I really love that idea that you can have a wardrobe that can change with you throughout your life.’

The dresses are handmade by two amazing dress makers, Jacky and Barbara, who use deadstock fabrics from sustainable sources.

Rachel Founded Careaux with her older sister Laura, and the pair trademarked the brand back in 2012.

Laura Beattie (left) and Rachel Beattie (right)

The two sisters successfully launched a Kickstarter campaign to launch their first collection, called ‘Create Choice, Create Change,‘ which was all about celebrating incredible changemakers and role models, and they reached their 10,000 pound target within just 3 weeks.

Careaux came to life when Rachel was a teenager, at just 14 years old. Her late nana, Theresa – who had been a dressmaker since she was 14 years old herself, was a major source of inspiration for Rachel’s burgeoning idea that then went on to become Careaux.

She added: ‘I made a dress with my nana, and she showed me from start to finish, and I completely love clothes but I didn’t really understand the process behind it, so I fell completely in love with the process.’

And upon speaking upon how she came up with the idea, she said:

‘I used to go shopping with my friends, try on clothes, and some of our friends would say ‘I wish was taller, or, I wish I was this, I wish I was that,’ and my sister Laura has cystic fibrosis, which means that her ribcage is a bit bigger than mine so clothes fit differently on her than to me, and I thought ‘why do we try on clothes and feel like we have to change ourselves to fit into them.’

Careaux won the Barclaycard Every Woman Innovator of The Year Award in 2018, and the two sisters became a Prince’s Trust Ambassador, a charity supporting 11 to 30-year-olds who are unemployed and struggling at school or at risk of exclusion.

Rachel aspires and hopes for Careaux to become a source of inspiration to women/their body, and hopes to have Careaux role models from every background, size, ethnicity, and disability – in order to create positive change.

You can find out more about Careaux here.

And don’t forget to check out our Gramersi VODcast episode on GramersiTV featuring Rachel from Careaux here.