Mother of two Erika Oakes never dreamed of opening a business until one day she was inspired while shopping for her sons.
“I was always looking to find cute stylish items for them to wear and I really started thinking about where the clothing was being made and always looking for Canadian brands and brands made locally,” she says.
But Oakes felt that wasn’t always easy to find. That’s when she teamed up with her brother with the idea of creating their own clothing line for children.
“One night Mike and I got really creative and we drew up some basic T-shirts and took all of my boys T-shirts together and took things we liked about certain brands and put them in one T-shirt”.
The pair approached a local manufacturer to work with them to make the clothing line which they launched online in the summer of 2016 as Os and Oakes.
“We did get a lot of great feedback right away such as it’s comfortable and we love the fact that it’s unisex,” says Michael Lipari Co-Founder of Os & Oakes.
“We did add some length to the items so it fit longer because we did find that some kids clothing shrinks up a lot of the times."
The pair says as the response online continued to grow, they decided it was time to also open a retail location in the city.
The business just moved into a retail space on Adelaide Street North and Oakes says the response has been positive.
Oakes says the next steps with the business will be to expand the clothing line.
“We also do have adult pieces so we’ve had a lot of interest in our adult line and so we hope to be expanding that in the fall.”
