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What actually happened in Miami, what we’re fixing, and what most people get wrong about how this business works

I went back and forth on whether to write this.

Not because I don’t have anything to say, but because I know how this goes. You can be clear, honest, direct, and there will still be people who choose to misunderstand it, clip it, or turn it into something it’s not. That’s part of building a brand in public right now.

But not saying anything doesn’t feel right either. Especially for the people who showed up, who care, and who deserve the full picture. So I’m going to walk through this once, clearly, and then move forward.

Five months ago, we decided to do a Miami pop-up. Not something small or casual, but something at real scale. A new market to activate in, a big moment for us, and a level of demand we hadn’t tested in that way before.

We didn’t just guess.

We worked with Leap, who runs our New York and West Hollywood stores and does this professionally. We asked for their numbers, their benchmarks, their perspective.

On top of that, we spoke to multiple experienced operators and founders who have done pop-ups at scale. We asked what they order, how they think about units, what typically works and what doesn’t.

We came at it from every angle we could.

If anything, we thought we were over-ordering.

And still, we sold through faster than expected.

That’s the part that gets lost. It’s easier to assume something was mishandled than to accept that sometimes demand outpaces even your most thoughtful planning.

There are also a few things that were said that just aren’t true.

We had water. A lot of it. We ordered 3,000 ice cold waters specifically for the line. My team, hired staff, and I were outside handing them out consistently running up and down the line. Could someone have missed it in a moment? Maybe. But the idea that there was no water or that we didn’t think about people standing in the heat isn’t accurate.

Our back-of-house storage was completely maxed out. Packed. There is a real, physical limit to how much product you can hold in a space, and we hit it.

Where we could have been better, and where I will fully own it, is the line.

It moved too slowly.

That’s on me. That’s on us. And we’re doing a full post-mortem this week to understand exactly where it broke down and how we fix it. Because we will do more of these, and the experience needs to be better. It will be.

I also want to say something that doesn’t translate on the internet.

It was really hot. People showed up for us in a big way, and I felt that in real time. So we started giving things away that were reserved to be sold at the popup. Socks, pilates socks, sweatshirts, hair clips. Anything we could get our hands on to make it better for people who took the time to be there.

At one point, I gave a girl the bra I was wearing because it was the exact size she needed and we had sold out.

That’s not a strategy. That’s just being a person.

I left the pop-up for one hour the entire weekend. I ran to eat because I didn't have one second to eat the whole day, threw my clothes into a suitcase, and came straight back before getting on a flight home to my sick husband and kids. The whole time, I was thinking about the line and how we could have done better there.

Two things can be true at once. The demand can be real, and parts of the execution can still need work. The job is to see both clearly and fix what needs fixing.

There’s also something else that matters to me that I don’t think gets talked about enough.

There were a lot of people working their asses off behind the scenes to try to make this a good experience. My team, store staff, extra hires we brought in, people running nonstop, restocking, answering questions, standing in the heat for hours.

These are real people. They care. They are trying.

They are not robots.

And the way some of the conversation has been framed completely forgets that. It reduces everything to a transaction and ignores the human effort behind it.

One day, maybe retail does become fully automated. Maybe it’s all self-checkout, no interaction, no one going out of their way to help you or make something right.

But just think about what that actually means. No empathy. No one handing you water. No one giving you something extra because they feel bad you’ve been waiting. No one caring if you leave happy or frustrated.

That’s not what we’re building.

Now, looking ahead.

Club SET drops this week. It will likely sell out. That inventory decision was made over nine months ago. That’s how far in advance this business operates.

After posting one teaser and seeing the response, we immediately placed a reorder, which will come later this summer. We don’t typically restock, but we’re doing it for this. And for Resort. And beyond that, we’ve increased inventory for future drops.

But none of that happens overnight. These are long lead-time decisions.

I’ve also seen the comments about valuation and “how can a $20M company not figure out inventory.”

That number is just not accurate.

And more importantly, anyone who thinks inventory planning is something you “figure out” perfectly has never done it. You’re balancing demand, cash, production timelines, storage, risk. If you overbuy, that’s a problem. If you underbuy, that’s a problem. There is no version where you nail it every single time, especially when you’re growing fast.

That’s just the reality.

And there’s one more thing I’m going to say, because it’s been hard to ignore.

There is a very real culture right now of tearing down female founders in a way that feels different. More personal. More aggressive. Faster to assume the worst.

And what’s honestly the hardest part is how much of that is coming from other women.

That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be held accountable. We should. I just did that above.

But there’s a difference between accountability and a pile-on. There’s a difference between wanting something to be better and wanting to tear someone down.

I don’t believe the tone would be the same if this exact situation happened with a male founder.

I just don’t.

I don’t love having to say that, but it’s real.

At the end of the day, I care deeply about what we’re building. I’m paying attention, I’m listening, and I’m committed to getting better every time we do something like this.

But I’m also going to keep making decisions, keep taking risks, and keep building.

That’s the job.