Marie Dooley

Marie Dooley is a designer and entrepreneur who operated women’s clothing stores in Quebec City from 1993 to 2015. She ran two neighbouring boutiques on René-Lévesque Boulevard: Marie Dooley Signature (called Couloir when it first opened in 1993), for ready-to-wear, and Marie Dooley Le Salon, devoted exclusively to custom-tailored evening wear and wedding dresses. The atelier, which usually employed around six seamstresses, was located nearby.

A self-taught fashion designer, Marie Dooley created her first collection in 1986, offering it to the boutique where she was employed as a sales associate.

She then opened her first atelier in Quebec’s Lower Town and, in 1990, worked with a Montreal agency who distributed her clothes and helped raise her profile in Quebec and Ontario.

In 2015, Marie Dooley closed her business, blaming the changing dynamics of the retail fashion industry. She entered the business world again in 2017, this time as a wholesaler in the field of interior design and sewing accessories. She took over the company Accent Mode and created her own line of curtains, throws, kitchen linens and cushions under the Marie Dooley Maison brand. Her products are largely imported, except for her line of decorative pillows made in Quebec.