It was late January, and the excitement was building among young women across the country. Valentine’s Day was approaching, and Parke—the wildly popular brand known primarily for its crewneck sweatshirts with the company’s name emblazoned across the front—was doing something it had never done before. Purple.
The previous spring and summer, many of Parke’s customers, who identify as much with the brand’s owner, Chelsea Parke Goles, as they do with its clothing, had been messaging the company on social media about how Parke had never made a sweatshirt in that color. So, to celebrate this year’s holiday of love and romance, Parke went purple. The line sold out quickly. And the connection between the company and its customers became stronger.
“I was seeing every girl I know posting on their personal Stories when the Valentine’s Day drop happened,” says Jessica Ricco, who grew up in River Vale and is a recent University of Georgia graduate. “They were upset when they didn’t get it. I never saw anything like it.”
For Goles, who grew up in New Vernon and started her eponymous brand in 2022, it was perfectly normal. Parke doesn’t use traditional advertising methods. It connects through messages, influencer videos and building relationships on social media, and uses pop-up stores that draw throngs of customers and monthly product line drops to generate excitement and demand.
“Our Valentine’s collection included purple only because people told us they wanted it,” says Goles, 29. “We wouldn’t have done it otherwise.”
At a time when people under 30 (particularly women) are looking for smaller brands that emphasize connection and are promoted by influencers and word of mouth, Parke has created a new paradigm. You can’t call the company, but you can message its team. And a team member will answer. Quickly. Engage on Instagram or TikTok, and you are likely to get some sort of response.
Goles wears Parke’s oversized denim jacket, $230. Photo: Madison Lane Photography
“Smaller companies using social media like this have a better grasp of who their audience is and can bring them along for the ride in way big companies can’t,” says Dr. Kevin Lyons, a professor at Rutgers who teaches a course in supply chain management for the fashion industry.
Parke has more than 490,000 Instagram followers. Goles has 150,000. The direct-to-consumer model relies heavily on customer engagement and storytelling. Goles is as much the Parke brand as any item it sells; sweatshirts range from $125-$140. She uses social media to relate the challenges and successes on her entrepreneurial journey and has said “transparency is key.” If you have spent any time on a college campus, you can tell the model works.
“Oh, I’m a big fan,” says Addison Figel, a student Villanova from Belle Mead who has a number of Parke sweatshirts.
It’s a model larger companies just can’t replicate.
“Customers and followers want to feel like they know [Goles] and are engaged with her,” says MarySheila McDonald, the John J. Scarpa Professor of Entrepreneurship at Villanova. “They want to have a relationship.”
Parke may not adopt every idea its customers propose, but the growth in sales over the company’s almost four years in existence—$100,000 in 2022 to $16 million as of November 2025—demonstrates that the formula works well. It’s a perfect strategy for the post-pandemic period, when McDonald says direct to consumer marketing “has exploded.”
“When we started the brand, we were at a different stage of social media,” Goles says. “There weren’t that many brands connected to the community. That’s why it’s so valuable for Parke to get feedback from customers in real time. Without it, we wouldn’t be as successful. We connect with people every day. Our team is messaging back and forth every day.”
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It would be great to say Goles has been designing outfits and counseling friends on fashion decisions since she was a girl, but that’s not the case. “When I was in middle school, I had a uniform for school,” she says. “On weekends, I played sports and rode horses. I didn’t have many clothes beyond school and sports and horses.”
The Heritage Varsity Mockneck Sweatshirt, $130. Photo: Courtesy of Parke
Goles graduated from Morristown Beard School in 2015 and went to Dickinson, where she played field hockey and majored in art studies. While there, her interest in fashion began to gather momentum, and in 2018, she studied in Florence for a semester. “I spent more time looking at fashion websites than listening to teachers,” she admits.
When Goles was 16, she met Kira Kramer, who was dating her brother Jackson and would eventually marry him. The two bonded quickly, and during one early 2020s summer in Loveladies, while each was working “jobs we weren’t obsessed with,” they spoke about someday starting a business together—although neither had an idea what that project would be. “We wanted to make it special and cool and make it a great environment for others,” Goles says.
“We talked about it as a dream,” Kramer adds.
During the pandemic, when Goles was working for a jewelry company after spending some time in the wholesale fashion business, she moved to Miami and started learning about the vintage denim business and particularly how the companies involved in it weren’t necessarily targeting women. She and Kramer decided that would be their joint project and connected with a wholesaler in Los Angeles who provided the denim that they turned into women’s jeans. The partnership succeeded “instantly,” says Goles. (Goles is creative director and CEO of Parke; Kramer is COO.)
But customers found two pairs of jeans that were the same size didn’t fit the same way, due to inconsistencies in the denim. So, in 2022, Parke pivoted to sweatshirts, which sold well right away. From there, Parke expanded to denim jeans, overalls, shorts, skirts, dresses and jackets—with only a small fraction of the content distressed. The clothes are manufactured overseas and warehoused in Middletown, Pennsylvania. With each new product and special-occasion launch, sales grew. So did customer loyalty, thanks to the quality of the apparel and the community Goles built.
“She seems to be very transparent,” says Mae Dolan of Old Tappan, a rising senior at Ohio State. “I follow her on Instagram, and she does Q&As and puts polls up. People type in what they want to see, and she really responds.”
The engagement goes beyond the products. When Chelsea married Nicholas Goles in September 2025, fans could track the event on social media. They could also see her “Dream Registry” on the Over the Moon website. On May 25, she announced the birth of their daughter, Willa; her Instagram post drew 84,000 likes in a day. By curating her life, she can create an aspirational model for young women.
“We now see more females in fashion,” Goles says. “Ten or 20 years ago, there were so many men running women’s wear brands.”
Goles can’t identify any one thing that has made the brand successful, although she says the team of 20 (not counting those in warehouse) works “really hard.” And there is a hometown component to the prosperity. “My Jersey roots have guided me,” Goles says. “I think a lot of entrepreneurs come from Jersey. It’s a great place.”
As the Parke community swells, Goles and the team will continue to create a culture built on engagement and quality products. That’s a good combination.
“We like where we are,” she says.
So do Parke’s legions of customers.
