The Tank-Tops that Altered the Summer: Love, Caro
Written & Interviewed By : Hannah Corbett
This summer belonged to sequins. They showed up everywhere. On bags, on pants, on tanks, shimmering their way into every suitcase for summer vacation. And at the center of it all was Caro Eades, the Indiana University alum whose senior capstone project unexpectedly became the trend of the season.
What started as a simple design concept, something Caro describes as “easy, and something you can live in,” turned into a viral phenomenon that catapulted her from student to founder almost overnight. Her pieces felt fun, wearable, a little nostalgic — the kind of thing you slip on without thinking and suddenly feel more like yourself.
I remember the first time I saw it. It was on one of our forever-favorites, Kitty Murphy. She was filming a haul, holding up this tank top that somehow looked effortless and electric at the same time. I instantly needed the tank. I paused the video, searched every tagged brand, dug through comments, and finally found Love, Caro. And instantly, I felt it, this is going to be huge.
I still don’t have one (yet!) because her Depop drops sell out in about five seconds. Caroline laughs when I tell her this. She explains that she only makes one or two of each size, simply because the process is so time consuming. In the early days, one top took her forty minutes to make. Now she’s down to twenty. The brand is transitioning toward “made to order,” but the soul of the pieces hasn’t changed: they’re slow, intentional, and lived in.
The signature capiz shells that define Love Caro were born from her love of coastal weddings, which ultimately shaped her senior capstone project. She designed an entire wedding ensemble made out of sculptural capiz-shell–inspired forms. She pulled from that project to create something more wearable, something that could be lived in. That’s her mission in three words: lived-in-art. Since then, she has made more pieces like skirts, sets, sweaters, and bags.
Ironically, being a fashion designer wasn’t part of her plan. Caro always saw herself as an artist first. She painted as a hobby her whole life until one day she realized she didn’t want it to be a hobby anymore. That realization carried her from Charleston to New Orleans for what she calls her “dream job,” becoming an in-store artist for Golden Goose.
But her dream doesn’t end there.
“Down the line I want to be an art teacher for little kids,” she tells me. “I love being the kind of person who loves kids.” She laughs as she adds, “Even my boss sees me interact with kids at the store and is like, yeah, you’re meant to be a teacher.” She imagines teaching during the week and running Love, Caro on weekends, the perfect balance of stability and passion.
As for the brand’s breakout moment, she credits it entirely to Kitty.
“If it weren’t for Kitty, Kennedy Eurich would’ve never seen it,” she says. “That’s really what did it. I owe all of that to Ken.” She even named a tank after her ‘The Ken Tank’ a white top adorned with pink capiz shells.
She tells me a story about someone recognizing that tank top in a mall. Her cousin spotted a girl wearing one of the capiz-shell tanks. At the time, several brands had started copying her designs, so her cousin approached the girl and asked, “Is that Love, Caro?” The girl immediately said yes. When she found out it was Caro’s cousin standing in front of her, she asked for a selfie on the spot.
It was an official Love, Caro sighting— and the kind of moment that reminded her just how far her designs had reached.
The whirlwind that followed was intense. “I have two friends helping me now, which is great, because it got a little crazy for a while.” But she never says this with stress, only gratitude.
“It’s one of those things,” she says, “where the moment you stop expecting something to happen… that’s the one that sticks.”
And stick it has.