Our Story

In 2004, at a small university in Birmingham, Alabama, two strangers became two friends, two friends became two risk takers, and two risk takers learned that whatever the risk, they wanted to do it together. Maybe it’s all the stuff of legends, a kind of friendship folklore, but for Kady and Lindsay, nothing would ever be the same.

After graduation, Kady Decker and Lindsay Lancaster, the duo behind kay & elle, got busy. Kady, a native Tennessean headed home to Nashville, and Lindsay, despite being as Florida as they come, decided to stay in Birmingham. Self-proclaimed workhorses and fitness enthusiasts, within the year each of them would open a Pure Barre studio, becoming not only some of the fitness brand’s first studio owners but also some of their youngest.

Seven years and ten studios later, they’d learned a thing or two.

They learned what women wanted. It was the same thing they had always wanted. To feel beautiful. To create their own path. To let go and go deeper. To take more risks and have fewer regrets. To be raw, real, and unstoppable.

On a life-changing trip to Costa Rica in 2015, Kady and Lindsay, water lovers and swimsuit fanatics, dreamed up kay & elle. Together, they’ve created a swimsuit line for the girl who wants to be set free—the unforgettable, can’t hide from her own light, sometimes broken but never defeated, called by the tide, pulse-driven, world on fire girl.

Every great legend begins with a risk.