To receive the Glossy Pop newsletter in your inbox every Friday, click here.
All products featured on Glossy Pop are independently selected by our editorial team. However, when you buy something through our retail links, we may earn an affiliate commission.
Chelsea Parke Kramer, 27, didn’t know her branded sweatshirts would go quite as viral as they have.
But, in certain circles — aspiring and actual influencers, Pilates Princesses, college-aged girls — her brand, Parke, is ubiquitous.
Parke launched in July 2022, selling re-worked vintage denim, but it quickly pivoted as the lack of uniformity from product to product made it hard to grow, Kramer said. At the time, she had about 10,000 Instagram followers. Today, she has just under 70,000 and over 125,000 on TikTok. Parke has 125,000 on Instagram and just under 50,000 on TikTok.
Parke sells denim, including a version of the barrel trend, and a dark-indigo straight-legged style, the latter of which is one of the most relevant of the season. But it is its mock neck sweatshirts ($125) that have nearly broken the internet time and time again.
Kramer does not take credit for inventing the mock-neck sweatshirt. “But we played a role in bringing it back,” she said, adding, “I don’t remember people talking about mock necks the way they do now before we resurfaced them.” Brands including FP Movement, Alo and Athleta have all since iterated on the trend.
On February 4, the brand dropped its hotly-anticipated Valentine’s Day collection, which included holiday-appropriate takes on its sweats collection, made up of pieces the brand calls “Cozies.” The Valentine’s Day collection included the famed mock necks, plus hoodies, sweatpants, pajamas and sweaters. Prices ranged from $15 for a scrunchie to $185 for a polo sweater. It sold out in under five minutes. Kramer declined to share the quantity produced.
Even before the collection dropped, there were TikToks debating whether or not the investment was worth it. And one user stated, with complete earnestness, “If I do not get this sweatshirt, I think it’s going to send me into an absolute spiral.” At Cayman’s, an Oklahoma-based retailer that sold some of the Valentine’s Day collection, girls who appeared college-aged started lining up at 2:30 a.m. on the day of the launch, according to TikTok. And people note their “controversial take” when they post that they don’t like Parke’s sweatshirts. All this is to say: There is a lot of hype around these sweatshirts.
“It’s actually insane. … I have no idea [why the logo sweatshirts are in such high demand], but I think there’s that element of virality, where … one person’s wearing it and then the next, and [also], … it just looks good,” Kramer told Glossy Pop in October. She guessed that most people don’t even know that “Parke” is her middle name. “It’s just a Parke sweatshirt,” and Parke sweatshirts are everywhere, she said.
“We could probably sell a garbage bag,” she joked. Kramer’s sister-in-law, Kira Kramer, the brand’s COO, chimed in, “We don’t know how people still need to buy them because how does everyone in the world not already have one? We’ve sold so many.”
And that was before October 23, when the brand launched a collaboration with activewear brand Set Active, which sold out in two minutes. That led to the onslaught of angry TikToks of girls reporting they had failed to obtain one of the reversible mock necks, with one side reading “SET” and the other “PARKE.” Because Kramer and Set Active’s founder, Lindsey Carter, are both public-facing founders who talk about their brands on Instagram, much of the outrage was directed at them. Customers were frustrated by the sites crashing, by influencers wearing gifted product, by both brands’ drop model sales and by the resulting pre-order with a 6-8-week wait. On a post expressing frustration about not being able to check out during the Valentine’s Day drop, one comment reads, “Like why am I having to Hunger Games cosplay to be able to buy a $200 sweatsuit.” Some commenters say they will purchase similar pieces from the likes of Aritizia. Others only want to get their hands on a Parke sweatsuit even more.
On February 4, the day of the Valentine’s Day launch, Kramer and the brand’s account posted a joint statement explaining that Parke’s site had seen 80,000 visitors — 4x its typical launch day numbers. In addition, it said, the company would be working with data analysts and strengthening its website infrastructure to prevent such rapid sellouts in the future.
“I never thought I would be apologizing for [something selling out]. I thought I would be celebrating,” Kramer said. “Instead, I was hysterical because people were so upset at the fact that [the collection] was sold out. I have yet to even think about how to celebrate [our best-ever sales day]. I’ve just been thinking about how, going forward, we can make the [experience better] because the response is crazy.”
Kramer said, despite the backlash she’s experienced, she’s happy to be the face of Parke. “In launching Parke, it was important for me to be [the person] behind the brand. … As a person and a young woman in business, people always tell me that they look up to me and appreciate my perspective and guidance. I’m authentic, I’m open, and I’m super transparent with the community. … But it’s definitely been one of the hardest things for me to navigate. It’s very personal when things don’t go as planned because people do associate me with that.
Kramer said Parke is taking “so many risks,” which they angry customers don’t likely know. For its Valentine’s Day collection, for example, it spent the most it had ever spent on a collection by ordering the most units it had ever ordered. But it still didn’t accommodate customer demand.
In other words, it is a misconception that Parke’s drop model is built on scarcity marketing, she said.
“Our costs for product in April is in the millions because I’d rather have [a higher] amount of inventory at this point to prove we’re not trying to scam people. I’m not trying to make money off of selling out really quick,” Kramer said.
She added, “I have an opportunity to take how awful people are and educate people and teach people that, at the end of the day, there is a young woman who has never owned or run a business before behind this who is trying her best. Instead of celebrating and being like, ‘Wow, I wish I got this sweatshirt, but I didn’t because it sold out,’ and being happy for this person who is launching this, people are like, ‘Fuck you,’ because I didn’t have enough units,'” Kramer said.
Earlier this week, Kramer and Carter polled members of their respective broadcast channels, asking if they’d be interested if the two of them co-hosted a podcast, hinting at how such education may take shape.
In January, Parke launched at Shopbop — its first online retailer. Currently, only two products are available, with more on the way. One of the two, a straight-leg pair of red jeans, is currently sold out in all but three sizes. Kramer said she wanted to focus on direct-to-consumer sales first, having worked in wholesale before and wanting to avoid being a brand entirely reliant on external retail partnerships. Shopbop made sense as a partner because she is a Shopbop customer. In addition, the retailer offers styling inspiration via multi-brand outfits that could inspire Parke purchases.
“We’re in a spot where we’re blowing up, and all of these stores want to carry our brand because they want to make money, at the end of the day. But it’s so important to be slow and intentional about launching online or in-store because we have such a strong community with our brand. We have people who buy from every single launch. I don’t want them to be like, ‘I can just get it on Shopbop,’ or, ‘I can just get it on Revolve after.’ I want them to feel like they’re a part of the Parke brand and that they can still come to us at launch and get it.”
On the first of every month, Parke restocks favorite styles from past collections that are still in demand. And, last year, it held pop-ups in New York in May and September — revenue earned during the September iteration was double that of May. Some customers waited as long as six hours to get in.
In 2023, the brand earned $1 million in revenue. In 2024, it did $16 million. This year, it is aiming to double that figure.
“At the end of the day, we are only two and a half years old,” Kramer said. “We take every single launch of every single thing we do as a learning experience and opportunity. We are just figuring out what our customer wants.”
Inside our coverage
Rocky Barnes joins Erin & Sara Foster in investing in Exponent Beauty
Fashion Briefing: Kendrick Lamar and the return of JNCO Jeans
Exclusive: Kiehl’s checks into ‘The White Lotus’ with limited-edition collaboration
Reading list
Without pennies, what becomes of penny loafers?
Celebrity-loved tanning artist Isabel Vita of Dolce Glow releases new brand, Sunnee BaeSkin
Inside the very pink, very Lucrative phenomenon of LoveShackFancy
