The Parke Valentine's Day Drop Fiasco
Were you able to secure what you wanted?!
Ah, I remember the good ol’ days when Parke was in its early stages, not many people knew what it was, all they really had out at the time was their classic varsity grey and navy crewneck, and people weren’t ripping Chelsea to shreds because they couldn’t get their hands on a piece from their Valentines Day collection.
Parke was founded by Chelsea Kramer who’s based out of Miami, and was inspired to create her own brand because of her love for denim. When I first discovered them in about January of 2024, they were such a small brand, maybe with about 4,000 followers on Instagram, who I noticed were primarily focused on selling denim and their classic grey and navy varsity crewneck. I remember Chelsea even came to Dallas in early of last year and held a pop-up at Miron Crosby, and obviously at the time it wasn’t a sensation like it is now where people are lining up for hours to get their hands on a classic mock or crewneck, so it was a pretty tamed and low-key pop up. Now though, Parke has genuinely exploded throughout social media and everybody wants to get their hands on at least one of their pieces.
Parke is constantly doing drops each month ranging from holiday cozies, to winter denim, dark wash denim, a tonal collection, but nobody quite anticipated that their Valentine’s Day collection would have people bouncing off the walls the way they were. Social media was obsessed. My TikTok ForYouPage was filled every day leading up to the launch of young girls freaking out over how perfect the collection was, and I won’t lie, I was just as obsessed as they were. The piece featured the most stunning color palette where they released six new varsity mock neck colors ranging from grey’s, to pinks, to reds, all with a matching boxer sweat pant, if you wanted to make it a set. A hoodie with the graphic “Parke 💖’s You” and another mock neck with Parke written in red surrounded by hearts, varsity hoodies, a land’s end tote, but that’s not all. Pullover fleeces, hats, cardigans, scrunchies, claw clips, polo sweaters, cardigans, pointelle lounge sets, button downs with matching shorts and pants, I mean, it was insane, Chelsea really outdid herself, so I could understand why everybody was freaking out. I think what people loved so much about this drop was the color palette, it encapsulated the Valentine’s Day vibe so perfectly.
With the amount of social media attention the drop was getting, I knew it wasn’t going to be a walk in the park (no pun intended) to get my hands on what I wanted from the collection. I finally made up my mind after debating long and hard what I was going to be going for the day of the launch. I decided on the varsity mock neck in the ballet pink shade, which was the overall fan favorite mock neck color so I worried others would beat me to the chase, and the heart pointelle henley and matching boxer short lounge set.
Leading up to the drop my confidence was high for some reason that I would be able to get what I wanted so I wasn’t stressing too much until the night before. Chelsea has a chat on Instagram I’ve been on for a while and she put out a poll asking what varsity mock neck color everybody was going to be getting in the morning. In not even five minutes the poll numbers went from zero votes to at least 1,500. I’d truly never seen one of their drops get as much attention as this one so I knew it was going to be mayhem.
The launch was set to release Tuesday, February 4th at 10 a.m eastern time. I set an alarm the night before and kept waking up in the middle of the night thinking I missed the drop (yes, I know I’m a freak for this) and once my actual alarm rang at 8:50 (I’m in Dallas, so an hour behind,) I knew it was time for war. My roommate and I woke up, got our laptops out and sat on the website for 10 minutes waiting for the website to open and once that clock struck 9 a.m our time, it was game time. We frantically scoured the website, I went first for the ballet pink varsity mock, put it in my cart, until the first issue arose. A robot security check? This security check delayed minutes of me being able to check out because the site wouldn’t even let me check off that I wasn’t a robot. Once I wrestled with that for at least two minutes, it took me through another two minutes of “check all the bicycles you see”. At this point I was fuming because this took off precious minutes of me being able to secure what I wanted and finally once I got past the robot, I then had to wait in line to check out? There was a queue that I waited in for about two minutes and with all the time I had wasted, I still somehow held onto a little bit of hope that I’d still somehow successfully purchase this sweatshirt. I got to checkout finally, my information was already inputted and I clicked check out. The little circle spun as it read “your order is processing” and I sat there with my heart pounding out of my chest, crossing my fingers, practically begging that the order would go through and somehow, it did.
I do not know how on earth I secured the sweatshirt but the Parke gods must’ve been on my side in the moment because later I had found out that every single color in every single size sold out in THREE minutes. I was genuinely baffled. On my high horse because of my luck, I was feeling cocky and thought to myself, “oh if I could get the sweatshirt, I could probably get this lounge set no problem,” I was sadly wrong. I went back for the pointelle and as I was in another four minute queue to check out, the image went red and I was notified it was sold out. While I was honestly pretty upset in the moment that I couldn’t get my hands on the other item I wanted, I had still gotten the sweatshirt so I wasn’t too upset. I knew though, the second I closed my laptop to go about with my day, that Chelsea was going to be absolutely annihilated on social media for how quickly the collection sold out and boy, was I right.
I looked back into the chat and read angry comments one being, “that’s honestly disappointing. I legit have been on the site since 9:50 a.m and was ready to check out immediately but because check out wasn’t working, it became sold out. I loved y’all before everyone else made it popular and I was already hesitant to try and buy today, but I don’t think I’ll ever buy from you again”. Yikes. Another reading, “THAT’S NOT OKAY. How could check out not work and then every single mock sold out in 2 minutes. NOT OKAY”. That’s not even the worst of it. People were truly ripping her to shreds. Complaining about the robot security check, which okay I agree with because that resulted in people not getting what they wanted. What people were most upset about was the two minute sell-out after the Parke team had been saying for weeks that they’d been working on getting a significant amount of greater quantities to ensure more people could get access to their items.
I’m obviously going to be a little bias because I was able to successfully get something I wanted, but one thing I’m so baffled by is how aggressive and rude people are being to her in her comment section. At the end of the day it is a sweatshirt or it is a boxer pant, so the amount of rudeness she is getting honestly makes me sad for her. I am all for the people leaving constructive criticism in her comments saying that they should get rid of the robot security check for future, or that they should ensure that when the item is in someone’s cart it shouldn’t sell out, or that they should make an even greater quantity for the next drop, I just think the aggression is soooo unnecessary.
After the explosion, Chelsea issued a three slide apology on her Instagram saying she can’t begin to describe her gratitude and that they were so taken aback by the 80,000 visitors who were on the site for the drop. 80,000??? Like are you kidding? Insane. But then went on to say that the bot protection was to ensure real customers had access to purchase and that they’d successfully blocked over 1,000 scam orders but that they recognized the site didn’t perform as well as they thought it would. They never planned to restock or bring anything back, but after the debacle she said they’d be restocking this collection in an upcoming “First of the Month Restock,” be working with data analysts to predict demand and structure inventory, strengthening the sites infrastructure, significantly increasing their order quantities, and continue to be transparent with their community. Read her statement below.
So boy, after all of this, it was quite a day to say the least. All in all though, I really love Chelsea Parke. She is truly one of the kindest founders I think I’ve ever come across. I follow a lot of brands and they are never going the extra mile like she is. Chelsea is constantly and I mean constantly doing giveaways, join her chat on Instagram because she at least does about two a week. There’s always a giveaway when a new collection is dropped and always some for fun. She even gave away 100 varsity sweatshirts for 100k, like wow. Just the other day she even said she was going to be giving away a custom David Yurman ring and whoever it went to, would have their initial engraved on it. I just thought that was so sweet. I went to her NYC pop up in May of 2024 and she made the effort to take photos, talk, and greet so many of the people who had waited hours to get inside. She personally came up to my friends and I, hugged us, thanked us for coming, then had a conversation with us. You could just really tell how sincere she was.
All in all, these are just my thoughts about how the drop went down and think there are definitely some things the team needs to work on to better prepare for the next drop but nonetheless, I will continue to support and be a loyal customer of theirs.
What are your thoughts on the whole catastrophe?! Let me know!
xo,
Chloe