By the Sea: A Beautiful Way to Live

I’ve spent my life surrounded by beautiful things.

My mother always had 100% organic cotton and linen fabrics in our home so I was used to quality textiles and knew them well. Those cotton sheet from the 60’s and 70’s were buttery and lasted for years.

Clothing, textiles, color, pattern, old fabrics, handmade objects, things for the home—I’ve always loved them. I love the way a beautiful piece of fabric feels in your hands. I love linen that gets softer and better with age. I love an old textile that already has a story. I love finding something special and thinking, I want to live with this.

That feeling is really where By the Sea begins.

I never wanted to create another fashion brand. The world has plenty of fashion brands. And honestly, after spending decades working in the fashion industry, simply putting more clothing into the world held very little interest for me.

I wanted to create something that felt different.

By the Sea is certainly clothing, but it has never been only clothing. It’s the linen shirt you throw on again and again. It’s the soft cotton quilt on your bed. It’s the sarong that goes from the beach to the table. It’s the handmade journal sitting beside you. It’s the beautiful little gift you find for someone because it reminds you of them.

It’s about the things we choose to bring close to us.

Beauty speaks to us

I believe beautiful things can raise our vibration. They can change the way a room feels, the way we feel in our clothes, even the way we move through an ordinary day.

And I don’t think we choose beauty entirely with our conscious minds.

Have you ever seen a particular color or pattern and felt instantly drawn to it? You may not even know why. You just know that this one speaks to you.

There’s a language happening there that has nothing to do with words. Color and shape communicate with the brain in their own language. A curve feels different from a hard line. A washed blue can make us exhale. A joyful pattern can energize us. Certain combinations of color, shape and texture simply make something inside us respond.

I’ve always been fascinated by that response.

It’s one of the reasons color and pattern are so important at By the Sea. I don’t want to make things that simply coordinate with your life. I want to make things that make you feel something—things you instinctively reach for because something about them feels like you.

And when we surround ourselves with things that bring us that kind of joy, I believe it changes the energy around us.

Beauty isn’t frivolous.

Beauty feeds us.

And I started asking myself another very simple question: Why doesn’t everyone have these beautiful organic things?

Why have we become so accustomed to polyester, plastic, chemical finishes, synthetic fabrics and things designed to be thrown away? Why should something beautiful come with all of that?

I don’t think it has to.

So at By the Sea, I started doing things differently.

Not because I wanted to create a complicated set of rules about how people should live. Quite the opposite. I wanted to get back to something simpler—natural fibers, beautiful fabrics, thoughtful handwork, things made in small quantities and pieces that don’t need to be replaced every six months.

Things you actually want to keep.

And I wanted to put hearts on everything. A heart is my way of saying, “I love you,” even when I’m not there to say it myself. It’s also a little reminder of what matters most in life: love, kindness, connection and the people we hold close. Every heart is meant to carry that feeling with it.

And then there was sizing.

One of the things I intentionally eliminated at By the Sea was traditional sizing.

After decades in corporate fashion, I knew something most women are never told: sizing is largely an inventory system. Every major fashion company develops its own fit and sizing standards. A medium at one company can fit like a small somewhere else and a large somewhere else entirely. Yet somewhere along the way, we started treating those little numbers and letters sewn into our clothing as though they were measurements of us.

I wanted no part of that.

So instead of starting with a size chart, I started with the woman.

Our clothing is intentionally designed with ease, movement and adjustability so that one beautifully considered garment can work across many different bodies. Wraps wrap. Ties tie. Dresses float. Shirts are generous. Fabrics move. The garment works with the body instead of asking the body to conform to the garment.

And there was another reason for doing it: inventory.

Traditional fashion asks a company to predict how many smalls, mediums, larges and extra-larges it will sell before anyone has even walked through the door. Get that equation wrong and you’re left with piles of unwanted clothing—then markdowns, clearance racks and, ultimately, waste.

Take away unnecessary sizing and suddenly you can make fewer garments, use what you make more intelligently, and dramatically reduce the inventory sitting around waiting for the “right” body to arrive.

To me, that’s sustainability too.

Some of our pieces begin with organic cotton or linen. Others begin with a textile that already exists—a vintage Kantha quilt, a remnant, a beautiful piece of fabric that deserves another life. We look at what we have and ask, What can this become?

That way of thinking has taken By the Sea far beyond fashion.

It has become clothing, bedding, home textiles, journals, gifts and objects that make everyday life a little more beautiful. Different categories, perhaps, but to me they’re all connected.

They’re the things we live with.

And if I’m going to put something against my skin, sleep underneath it, bring it into my home or give it to somebody I care about, I want to know what it is. I want it to feel good. I want it to be beautiful. And whenever possible, I want it to come from the natural world rather than a laboratory.

I also want it to carry a little love with it. That’s why the hearts matter. They’re small, but they say something important: you are loved, and the most meaningful things in life are not things at all, but the love and connection we share.

That’s the world I’m creating with By the Sea.

Not another collection of things to buy.

A collection of things you will fall in love with, again and again.

Love,

Kathryn