A new retail shop has joined the thriving shopping scene on Sullivan’s Island. Beachkrew, a beach-inspired loungewear apparel store, is now open at 2019 Middle Street. The shop offers unisex and children’s crewnecks, hoodies, tank tops and tees, sweatpants and shorts, tote bags, and hats.
Beachkrew was founded by Karlee Hart during her junior year of college at the University of Delaware when she was just 21 years old. An accounting student originally from southern New Jersey, she always had an entrepreneurial spirit and a passion for loungewear.
“I wasn’t a big girly-girl, but I loved fashion and seeing what people were wearing,” says Hart, who opted to wear big, cozy sweatshirts. “I wanted to be comfortable, but I didn’t like how they fit.”
Before Beachkrew, Hart initially started her fashion career in May 2021 designing trucker hats for her line hatsbykarlee in her parents’ basement. She watched YouTube videos to learn how to adhere custom patches to them with her mom’s old iron. To grow her business, she utilized Instagram and TikTok, taking photos of the hats and following stores and their followers to expose her hats to potential new clients. She Googled how to make a website and set up her first online shop using Square (the brand now uses Shopify).
She relocated full time to Ocean City, New Jersey, where her family had a beach home. By July, the hats were officially a hit, and she set her sights on expanding her brand to more than just hats with a loungewear line inspired by beach towns.
“In most beach towns, you find the same exact thing: unoriginal, low-quality sweatshirts with the town's name across it. I thought it would be fun to create beach-inspired apparel for locals and vacationers that was more fashionable and higher quality. I felt like it was a problem I could solve,” says Hart. “I know I'm my best self when at the beach or near the water–there’s something about the ocean we all connect to.”
She rebranded hatsbykarlee to Beachkrew during the summer of 2021 (the ‘K’ a nod to her first name), with the intent to make her hats almost solely beach-inspired and to begin creating clothing with positive and beach-inspired sayings. Beachkrew launched with two sweatshirts in August 2021, with the monikers ‘Get Busy Living’ and ‘Stay Wavy Baby.’ With her parents’ blessing, Hart took a semester off from school to focus on the brand. During that time, she created the brand’s signature sweatshirt design, ‘More Beach Days,’ encouraging people to get to the beach as much as possible – “a positive movement about how the beach makes us feel and putting it into clothing,” says Hart.
Confident in her vision for Beachkrew, Hart decided to drop out of college. By the fall of 2021, momentum was growing – she collaborated with a small smoothie shop in Ocean City called Spoon and Sip to have her items in a storefront and visible to more eyes. She “went crazy” on TikTok, posting four to five times a day, bringing in visitors who had seen her posts. Meanwhile, Hart was still making custom hats and screenprinting Beachkrew sweatshirts at a local printer in southern New Jersey. Originally using Comfort Colors, Hart expanded her knowledge of manufacturing.
By the end of 2022, Hart was looking to expand Beachkrew beyond the Jersey Shore. Her family had friends in the Charleston area that they had been visiting for years.
“I felt like Beachkrew's energy and vibe were here,” she says.
By the fall of 2022, Hart loaded up her car with inventory and got a three-month lease in Mount Pleasant to see if she could expand the brand in South Carolina. With the help of friends and “a lot of prayer,” she opened a small short-term storefront at Ashley Artisan Suites in downtown Charleston next to FORM Charleston in February 2023, a relationship that would ultimately lead to her store relocating to Sullivan’s Island.
Meanwhile, the Ocean City location continued to grow at the smoothie shop. Hart now had hired employees of her own and opened her solo flagship Beachkrew store on May 13, 2023.
Seeking to find a more permanent home for Beachkrew in Charleston, an opportunity came open on Sullivan’s Island after the closing of Breathe Pilates. Hart’s neighbors, pilates studio FORM Charleston, were looking to take over the space and allow Hart to occupy part of the storefront. But following the King Tide and subsequent flooding that occurred in September 2023, FORM was no longer able to. However, Hart was and she fought for the property to be solely hers. Her persistence and prayer paid off, and on Feb. 17, 2024, Beachkrew opened its doors on Sullivan’s.
Open seven days a week, the store’s eclectic beach house vibes welcome locals and vacationers alike.
“My dream for the brand is to create the pieces I can’t find,” says Hart. “We’re eventually going to expand into swimwear and knits and linens.”
The goal: to bring the beach vibes and ‘Keep the Feeling Alive,’ another moniker and movement that Beachkrew hopes to bring to its customers.
“Even if you're not at the beach, I want Beachkrew to remind you of that feeling year-round,” says Hart. “Get outside, get in a walk, get in the sun, and be a part of the community.”
