NATASHA SIMMONS

Long before Natasha Simmons became an entrepreneur, creative director, and founder of a luxury lifestyle brand, she was a 10-year-old girl experiencing homelessness and wondering if she would live long enough to become a woman.

Born in Titusville, Florida, Natasha is the oldest of three children. Her childhood did not fit the story people often expect to hear when they hear the word “homeless.” Both of her parents were educated, working-class professionals. Yet behind closed doors, her relationship with her mother was deeply complicated and painful, something Natasha struggled to understand even through her mother’s final days.

There were nights when survival felt uncertain. As a child, Natasha rarely imagined herself growing old because she was convinced she would leave this earth young.

But she dreamed.

And when Natasha dreamed, she never dreamed small.

She dreamed of what her father jokingly calls “the high life” — beautiful clothes, travel, luxury, freedom, family, and a life that looked nothing like her surrounding circumstances. Even then, she knew average would never satisfy her. Not because she believed she was better than anyone else, but because something inside her told her that the life she could see in her imagination was possible.

Her faith became central to that transformation. Natasha believes God made her a promise: if she changed the direction of her life, she would experience a life she could once only imagine. At the time, she had no idea how much discipline, sacrifice, healing, accountability, and faith that commitment would require.

She chose it anyway.

Fashion Before the Brand

Fashion was woven into Natasha’s life long before Yacht Club® existed.

She grew up surrounded by women and loved visiting family because it meant raiding closets, discovering beautiful pieces, and begging to take home whatever caught her eye. Her mother owned a women’s boutique, and Natasha would eventually spend more than 20 years in retail, building experience across companies including Rich’s, now Macy’s, Bath & Body Works, and Nordstrom.

She also spent seven years as a celebrity hairstylist, working in an industry where image, personal expression, beauty, and confidence were part of the language.

But one of the most defining moments in Natasha’s relationship with fashion happened at 30 years old.

After losing weight, she wore her first bikini.

For someone who had spent years feeling that certain experiences, clothes, and spaces were not created for women with bodies like hers, that moment represented far more than swimwear. It gave her a new sense of possibility.

She remembers thinking: If I can do this, I can do anything I put my mind to.

During that chapter of her life, Natasha was modeling, traveling, dating successful men who owned yachts, and experiencing a lifestyle that once existed only in her childhood imagination. She was fortunate to have a personal seamstress and began designing many of the pieces she wore herself.

During yacht excursions and vacations, women constantly complimented her clothing and asked about what she was wearing.

Those compliments became market research before Natasha knew to call them that.

She began imagining a brand, and a community, for women whose bodies were not represented by the traditional fashion standard. At the time, stylish plus-size resort and swim options were scarce. Too often, fuller-figured women were expected to cover themselves at the beach rather than celebrate themselves.

Natasha wanted to change that.

The name came naturally: Yacht Club.

But she wanted the brand to represent something bigger than yachts.

She added one word: Access.

Because the real vision was access — to experiences, confidence, fashion, travel, luxury, and a lifestyle people may have believed wasn't meant for them.

Building Yacht Club®

In 2020, headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, Yacht Club Access was born.

The timing was unexpected. The world was navigating COVID-19, people were isolated at home, and social media was rapidly transforming the way people saw themselves and one another. Suddenly, everyday people could create, influence, build communities, launch businesses, and become the stars of their own lives.

Natasha saw an opportunity to marry that cultural shift with her vision.

What began as a fashion brand evolved into what is now Yacht Club®, a luxury swim and resort lifestyle brand built around fashion, travel, family, sustainability, access, and impact.

And Natasha was determined that the company would never forget the child she once was.

Yacht Club® gives back to youth experiencing circumstances Natasha understands personally, partnering with nonprofit organizations serving homeless and trafficked youth and helping provide clean undergarments to approximately 100 young people annually.

Her philosophy is simple: luxury and impact do not have to exist in separate worlds.

In March 2023, Natasha made a pivotal decision to approach entrepreneurship differently. She joined Atlanta's Russell Innovation Center for Entrepreneurs (RICE), looking for something she knew ambition alone could not provide: community, education, infrastructure, mentorship, and the knowledge required to turn a business into a generational enterprise.

Soon afterward, Walmart discovered the brand and invited Natasha to Bentonville, Arkansas, to pitch Yacht Club® for its stores.

It was an extraordinary opportunity, and an equally important lesson.

Natasha quickly realized that having an opportunity and being operationally prepared for that opportunity are two very different things. When discussions moved toward terms she believed required giving up too much ownership and control of what she had built, she declined.

Walking away taught her something that continues to shape her leadership:

Every opportunity is not your opportunity.

The relationship instead evolved into a marketplace opportunity, creating another distribution channel for the brand.

Then came luxury hospitality.

When Waldorf Astoria Atlanta Buckhead approached Natasha about advertising in its guest guide, she saw something beyond an advertisement. She saw a door cracked open.

Her response was essentially: Yes, but when this agreement ends, I want the opportunity to present Yacht Club® for your retail store.

It worked.

Yacht Club® has now maintained a retail relationship with Waldorf Astoria Atlanta Buckhead for more than two years, with products repeatedly selling through, and the brand has expanded its hospitality footprint to include Signia by Hilton Atlanta and continues pursuing additional luxury hotel partnerships.

It is an example of how Natasha has built her company: not waiting for the perfect invitation, but looking at every opportunity and asking, How can I turn this into something bigger?

Partnership as a Growth Strategy

One of the greatest turning points in Natasha’s entrepreneurial journey was realizing that building a business does not mean building it alone.

Partnership became one of the most important growth strategies in the early stages of Yacht Club®. Rather than believing she needed to own every resource, audience, relationship, or opportunity herself, Natasha learned how to identify organizations whose missions, customers, and capabilities complemented her own.

That mindset helped transform relationships into opportunities, opportunities into partnerships, and partnerships into sustainable avenues for growth.

Her understanding of purpose-driven leadership also extends beyond Yacht Club®.

Drawing from her own experience building a nonprofit organization supporting women suffering from hair loss, Natasha now uses her spare time to serve alongside nonprofit founders as a Strategic Growth & Partnerships Advisor, helping leaders think more intentionally about organizational structure, strategic relationships, partnerships, revenue opportunities, and long-term growth.

The work reflects one of the most valuable lessons Yacht Club® has taught her:

You do not have to build your vision alone.

Sometimes the pivotal moment is not finding another way to work harder. It is finding the right people and organizations to build with.

Leadership With Clarity, Courage and Consistency

Since 2020, Natasha’s definition of leadership has evolved alongside her company.

She has learned that leadership is less about control and more about clarity, courage, and consistency. When the world becomes unpredictable, values become the compass.

For Natasha, leadership means having enough vision to know where she wants to go and enough humanity to understand the people traveling with her. It requires listening deeply, adapting quickly, and making decisions rooted in both strategy and heart.

That philosophy extends beyond the way she leads Yacht Club®. It shapes the way she designs.

The Yacht Club® woman is intentional. She moves with purpose. She values her time. And she designs her life as thoughtfully as she dresses for it.

When Natasha creates for her, she is not simply thinking about how that woman will look in the mirror. She is thinking about how she will move through her day, through her goals, and through her world.

The designs are intended to support her physically and emotionally.

Because when a woman feels comfortable, supported, and confident in what she is wearing, she shows up differently.

She stands taller.

She speaks with greater clarity.

She gives herself permission to take up space.

That shift is powerful.

Armor and Ease

Natasha’s vision has always been for Yacht Club® to feel like armor and ease at the same time.

The armor is intentional.

These are garments designed to move with a woman’s ambitions, not against them — pieces she can travel in, build in, celebrate in, and live in.

Because when a woman feels good in her body and aligned with her lifestyle, Natasha believes that confidence can influence everything else: her relationships, her work, her wellness, and ultimately, her sense of self.

Yacht Club® is not about dressing a moment.

It is about supporting a life.

And when a woman feels supported in how she lives, she becomes unstoppable.

When she wears Yacht Club®, Natasha wants her to feel free, grounded, and expansive, all at once.

Resort wear has traditionally symbolized escape. For Natasha, it represents something much deeper than a vacation.

It represents the freedom to choose your life, the courage to pursue your dreams, and the confidence to exist in your fullness.

Yacht Club® is designed to evoke that emotional state — the feeling of standing at the edge of possibility, where the world feels open and yours to navigate.

Natasha envisions every piece carrying a sense of arrival, not simply arrival at a destination, but arrival at herself.

Whether she is boarding a flight, walking into a meeting, stepping onto a yacht, enjoying a resort, building her company, or entering an entirely new season of her life, Yacht Club® should remind her:

You belong in every space you enter.

Ultimately, Natasha is building Yacht Club® around an emotional experience she describes as elegant liberation — where luxury feels effortless, movement feels natural, and a woman’s life feels beautifully and intentionally her own.

From Atlanta to the World

Today, Natasha is expanding the Yacht Club® vision beyond its original customer and beyond U.S. borders.

Following an international trade mission to Costa Rica, she launched PURA VIDA, a collection inspired by the country, with pieces named for its beaches, coastal destinations, and marinas.

And the journey is only expanding. In Spring 2027, Yacht Club® will take another significant step onto the global stage, expanding into Europe and Latin America through a co-branded opportunity spanning several international airport locations. For Natasha, placing Yacht Club® within the very spaces where people begin and continue their journeys is a natural evolution of a brand built around access, travel, lifestyle, and possibility.

The evolution represents something deeply personal.

The little girl who once could not imagine surviving long enough to see adulthood is now building a brand inspired by the places around the world she has had the privilege to experience.

The woman who once struggled to see herself represented in swimwear now designs it.

The woman who once experienced homelessness now sells her designs inside luxury hotels.

The woman who once wondered whether she belonged is no longer waiting for someone else to decide.

And perhaps Natasha's greatest title is not founder, CEO, designer, or disruptor.

It is mother.

She is the proud mother of a daughter whom she laughingly describes as “spoiled rotten.” Motherhood has allowed Natasha to create the love, experiences, security, and possibility she dreamed about as a child, and has strengthened her desire to build something that can live beyond her.

Disrupting Who Gets to Belong

After surviving homelessness, painful family experiences, near-death moments, business setbacks, closed doors, and lessons she often had to teach herself, Natasha's mission has become larger than building a successful fashion company.

She intends to disrupt the status quo that tells women, particularly women of color, that they should shrink themselves, wait their turn, remain grateful simply to be invited, or accept that certain rooms were never built for them.

Natasha is not waiting for permission.

She is creating her own opportunities and building her own tables, with as many seats as God allows her to create.

There is a familiar saying: “It's lonely at the top.”

Natasha rejects that premise.

It doesn't have to be.

Success, in her view, becomes more meaningful when it creates access for someone else. That philosophy is reflected in her commitment to entrepreneurship, mentorship, community impact, nonprofit advisory work, strategic partnerships, and creating pathways for the next generation.

She is building the life the 10-year-old version of herself could barely imagine surviving long enough to experience.

So, who is Natasha Simmons?

In her own words:

“I am peace. I am wisdom. I am a woman who gave herself permission to simply be enough. I am a woman living in a higher version of herself. I am light. I am freedom. I am Lovie. I am my ancestors' wildest dream. I AM NATASHA SIMMONS.”