The Parke Effect: Why Everyone at SU Is Wearing the Same Sweatshirt
How a viral sweatshirt drop turned into an unofficial Syracuse uniform this fall.
BY Jenna Barr ★ OCtober 2nd, 2026
Photo Credit: Maia Simmons
September 3rd, I walked back from the dining hall and went straight to the mail room because I received the highly anticipated email that I had a package. I stood in line with a friend and a few others. We were all waiting for the Syracuse-branded Parke Mockneck we raced to purchase on August 25th, the day the brand Parke dropped its first-ever collegiate collection. Walk through the quad on any given afternoon, and you’ll spot the same navy or gray mockneck on at least three different people. Syracuse has a new uniform, and it didn’t come from the bookstore.
Parke is the creation of Chelsea Parke Kramer, who launched the label in 2022 after moving to Miami. One day, she engaged in a conversation at a farmers market with someone whose father owned a recycled-denim warehouse in Los Angeles. This connection became the backbone of Parke’s earliest identity: upcycled vintage denim, sold as a more sustainable, better-made alternative to fast fashion. Kramer, who studied art history at Dickinson College before pivoting into design, has said her original goal was simple: jeans that actually fit and a white tee that held up. Kramer also studied art history abroad in Florence, Italy, with Syracuse!
But the brand didn’t stay in denim for long. By 2023, Parke had expanded into loungewear and matching sets, and that’s when the now-famous sweatshirt entered the picture. The mockneck silhouette, that ribbed collar that sits somewhere between a crewneck and a turtleneck, is Parke’s signature. Kramer has been candid about running the brand with little to no traditional advertising, relying instead on word of mouth and an Instagram presence that reads more like a friend’s personal account than a corporate storefront.
This approach is a big part of why Parke feels different from a normal collegiate licensing deal. Brands like Champion or Nike that we see in the campus bookstore have veen putting their logos on college hoodies for decades, but nobody was set to multiple devices at 10 a.m. waiting for a Champion drop to sell out.
Parke built its reputation on scarcity: small-batch releases that disappear within minutes and then resurface on resale sites for double or triple the sticker price. It’s a strategy that’s worked well enough that in April, the brand expanded into Target stores nationwide.
So, when Parke announced a licensed collegiate collaboration with ‘47, the same sports apparel company responsible for the dad-hat baseball caps you may spot on game day, it made sense that people expected the drop to behave exactly like every other Parke release. Which it did. The Aug. 25 collection covered ten schools, Syracuse among them, with each mockneck done up in the university’s official colors and an embroidered patch. Within the hour, popular sizes were gone. Within days, they were listed on resale sites like Depop and eBay for well over retail.
What's interesting is how that scarcity model originally built around a Miami denim startup has translated almost perfectly onto a college campus. Parke’s whole pitch has always been about turning basics into something people are willing to camp out, digitally, at least, to get their hands on.
Whether the brand keeps expanding its campus footprint next year, or whether the hype cools once the initial drop stops feeling exclusive, is hard to predict. But for a company that started with one founder's search for the perfect pair of jeans, Parke has managed something most fashion brands never do: it made a sweatshirt feel like it was worth waiting in a long mail room line for.
Edited by Maia Simmons