Beachkrew is open for ALL Seasons: Karlee Hart

Written & Interviewed By : Hannah Corbett

In the world of fast-paced TikTok trends and overnight "it-girl" brands, Karlee Hart, the 26-year-old founder and designer of Beachkrew, is playing a much deeper game. Her story isn't one of a massive venture capital injection or a viral fluke; it’s a masterclass in grit, intuition, and the "delusional" confidence required to drop out of an accounting major to pursue a sun-soaked dream.

"I think you have to get so comfortable with being so uncomfortable all the time, and then you'll make it," she reflects.

I walked into Faherty's Sun and Waves Coffee Shop in Spring Lake, New Jersey, to meet with Karlee. The moment I parked my car, I knew it was the perfect setting for our interview. It was a sunny, 96-degree day just a few blocks from the ocean, where the salt air still managed to find me. Inside, I zig-zagged through a relaxed array of couches, surfboards, and eclectic tables until I spotted her. Karlee was sitting with a coffee, looking effortlessly preppy yet relaxed in a new striped Beachkrew sample and layers of necklaces. We decided to take our conversation outside, and as we settled into a table, I leaned in and asked her to tell me everything.

Long before the "K" in Beachkrew became a recognizable logo, there was Hats by Karlee. She was a student at the University of Delaware when COVID-19 hit, sending her home to Southern Jersey. Growing up in a family of entrepreneurs—her father started his own firm and her mother’s side was equally business-minded—the drive to create was in her DNA. "I’m the baby of three, and I think I always wanted to keep up and kind of do my own thing," she says. In 2021, amidst the sea of trucker hats taking over social media, Karlee saw an opening. "It’s so funny because I always say, I never even wore trucker hats. I think I was just like, oh, cool, I can insert something here."

After only two months, she realized the brand needed to be a total reflection of the coastal life she actually lived. "I wanted it to be beach-inspired, and then I just kind of brought it into my everyday life." She and a friend were driving home from the shore when they started throwing out names like "Beach Club" before finally landing on Beachkrew—with a "K."

Every startup has its make-or-break moment. For Karlee, it happened in October 2021. Having just decided to take a semester off school to focus on her new venture—a move her parents supported despite their initial surprise—Karlee walked into a smoothie shop called Spoon and Sip in Ocean City. She had been messaging the owner, Britney, about wholesaling. In a stroke of divine intervention, Britney revealed she wanted to bring retail into her shop. By February, Karlee had renovated a wall in the space. Suddenly, Beachkrew had its first physical home.

While many brands are content with mass-produced blanks, Karlee is steering Beachkrew into the deep end of custom manufacturing. She isn't interested in just being a sweatshirt company; she wants a lifestyle brand where customers shop for linen sets and activewear year-round.

"My style is literally like, if I want to go buy a pair of leggings, I might as well just make them myself" she explains. Her design philosophy is rooted in "Americana"—classic, preppy roots that feel timeless.

"I always wanted to have good clothes, In high school, I wore the heck out of my Delaware sweatshirt and I felt like I looked better in that than other clothes”. Pieces that will be around for centuries, even long after we’re not here anymore.

Karlee is refreshingly candid about the struggles of scaling, having managed locations across Nantucket, New Jersey, and Charleston. She signed her first commercial lease at 22, navigating the world of intimidating landlords. "My dad always jokes. He’s like, she learned how to sign a commercial lease when she was 22. Like, that’s just crazy."

I knew I needed to scale back on physical retail for a season so I could build out the systems and processes the brand actually needed, and let our custom manufacturing come to life, which takes so much time that I wouldn’t have had otherwise.

“The [Sullivan’s] store flooded all the time. I paid to put new flooring down and my girls (at the store) called me while literally ripping the flooring up because it was all coming apart. I lost like $5,000 or more from all of that. I can't have them calling me every time it rains, asking, ‘Should we put the rugs up? Is it going to flood?’ Which I knew was a risk going onto the island." but honestly, that wasn’t the only reason.

The main reason, Karlee says, was knowing it was time to invest in the foundation, not more square footage. “I’m proud of us for all we accomplished in each location. We were never ready for the volume, often being sold out, but we just believed we could make anything happen”. Now in her journey, mixing ‘leaping before you’re ready’ with being fully prepared and operationally sound is how she is moving forward. ”"You know when there's something you're supposed to do. I really leaned on that, and I think people have learned to trust me when I'm really serious about something.”

If this past year has taught Karlee anything, it’s that scaling requires immense personal growth. "Learning how to be a leader, and not bottleneck everything or micromanage everyone, has been the biggest shift for me."

Despite the pressure to be the public "face" of the brand, Karlee remains focused on the broader mission. "I built Beachkrew to be about a feeling and a place, not a person. It’s not about me." She doesn't pay influencers to post, preferring organic connections. "I think the biggest thing that grew Beachkrew was the community aspect. I will never feel like we do enough, ever, ever, ever. I would love to do so many more PR events and influencer outreach, but it's been so organic, and that's another thing that I'm incredibly proud of.” Through all the fleeting digital trends, Beachkrew has consistently hit its true target demographic: the everyday person.

Looking forward, her ambitions are massive. "I want to open 50 stores everywhere.” That is Karlee’s ultimate goal: to keep expanding. But while she scales, she tries to maintain a flexible outlook. "I would love to have a five-year plan, but I can't even make that a reality today. So I'm just taking it day by day.”

She told me she sees her setup almost like a long-term pop-up, which I love. It keeps things feeling fresh and unexpected because nobody ever really knows how long she’ll be in a space. While most commercial leases trap you for five to ten years, she’s actually gotten landlords to agree to contracts under three years, leaving the whole timeline totally open-ended.

As she navigates her mid-20s, Karlee embraces her temporary "nomad" status. "Maybe I change my mind a lot. I keep saying, until I find my husband, I don't think I know where I'll be physically. But I do really split my time between South Carolina, New Jersey, and now Nantucket.”

Her ultimate vision is a brand that completely transcends the tourist season. "I see stores full of diverse clothing arrays and curated collections. People are really starting to count on us for staples. We're classic, timeless, classy pieces. Like, of course we'll have the sweatshirts and all that fun stuff, but it won't be so location-heavy. Those location pieces will just be the exclusive, exciting, fun parts of the store."  "I get so ecstatic opening up a new store and designing it to the town's vibe," Karlee says. I feel like Nantucket’s has a very nautical and fisherman vibe, and then New Jersey is kind of a mix of that and surfer."  She tells me how she’s designed every store and sometimes the poles fall off the wall, but she says laughing  “We gotta freaking put them back up and that’s always crazy to get those types of calls where I’m like ‘oh, gosh, something else.  But that’s my favorite part”.

As we reached the end of our conversation, I told her how I always end interviews by asking where someone thinks they’ll be in five years. But since she already touched on not having a strict timeline, Karlee reflected instead on how tough she is on herself and the standards she holds.

“Until I get there—to this place of being a staple for people that is entirely timeless and classic—I’ll feel like this is more than just a brand I built out of college, like I finally made it. It’ll be a brand I’ll have for a lifetime.”

As I’ve been a fan of BK for a couple of years, I already felt this shift coming.  Yet, from talking to Karlee about where the future of Beachkrew is heading, it's abundantly clear that this isn’t just a fleeting summer brand or a piece of merch you buy on vacation and forget about. You don't pack it away when trading out your wardrobe for fall and winter. It’s the exact sweater thrown over the back of your bedroom chair year-round—the one that feels like a second skin the second you pull it on.

As a designer, entrepreneur, and woman founder, Karlee is completely rewriting the rulebook, wearing every single hat on her own terms and proving you don't have to box yourself in to build something beautiful and long-lasting. She is creating an absolute sense of freedom. It’s about having fiercely dependable pieces in your closet that don't demand anything from you. What’s to come next from Beachkrew are closet staples that ground you, strip away the noise, and allow you to feel entirely, unapologetically yourself.