Our Story

Comfortable being you.

KOZY is built around a simple belief: the things you live in, reach for and share with people should feel good—and feel like you.

Behind KOZY is KozyKate, a lifelong maker and inventor with decades of experience creating products that bring people comfort. Her work has always started the same way: notice what someone needs, care enough to make it better, and keep working until it feels right.

Today, KOZY brings that human approach to original apparel, thoughtfully made comfort products and fashion finds chosen for real people rather than an imaginary “perfect” customer.

Made human.

Some KOZY pieces are produced in small quantities. Others are created only once. They may carry a maker’s name, an individual number or a detail that could only come from the person behind it.

That does not make them precious. It makes them personal.

Like what you like.

We believe confidence is not about performing for anyone else. It is knowing what you like, choosing what feels right and being comfortable enough to enjoy it.

Expect better. Get Kozy.

The KOZY Story

Made from real life.

Before KOZY became a brand, it was a way of noticing what people needed—and caring enough to make it better.

The instinct behind it

Care is not a look.
It is what you do.

Kate Small—known to customers as KozyKate—built her work around a practical kind of care. See the problem. Understand the person living with it. Then keep working until the answer feels right.

That instinct would lead from family and home beginnings to products, production, retail shelves, invention recognition, national television, and the modern KOZY brand.

01

The beginning

Kozy Collar

Kozy Collar was the beginning of a business built by making something useful and then finding a way to make it well. From Pinellas Park, Florida, Kate developed the product, packaging, event business, and the production capability needed to put it into customers’ hands.

Her father, Francis Small, brought his own problem-solving to the production work. What began close to home grew into a real operating business, including regional Walmart placement at the Pinellas Park store.

Founder artifact The cash box

The work was always personal.

Kate’s original event cash box held a toddler photograph of her children, Holly and John. It is a small artifact with a large meaning: the long days, travel, risk, and work were never separate from the family she was doing it for.

Holly is part of that family history. John would later become part of carrying the business and product-development lineage forward.

02

A real problem

ThermaStretch

After a knee injury, Kate struggled to keep a conventional heating pad positioned where she needed it. Her answer was not simply another heating pad, but a flexible hot-and-cold therapy wrap designed to stretch, fasten, and conform around different areas of the body.

The same working method that shaped Kozy Collar was now solving a new problem: listen to real experience, rethink the ordinary answer, and build something better.

Recognition and opportunity

An invention finds its stage.

Recognition

INPEX

ThermaStretch received invention recognition and was repeatedly described as an award-winning invention.

Opportunity

Dolphin Tank

Women’s Leadership LIVE and Dolphin Tank helped move the product toward a larger national opportunity.

National television

HSN

Kate brought the solution and the story behind it directly to a national audience.

From a real problem to a national stage

Live on HSN

ThermaStretch debuted nationally through HSN’s American Dreams programming. Kate returned for multiple live appearances, with HSN hosts referencing prior fast sellouts and the product selling out during earlier visits.

On air, Kate explained the knee injury that started the idea while the product was demonstrated for both heat and cold therapy around different areas of the body. The appearances showed more than a television moment—they showed repeated consumer demand for a solution rooted in real experience.

The work behind the work

Where Women Create WORK

In 2019, Kate’s work and working world were documented in Where Women Create WORK—another record of the persistence, invention, and human effort behind the products.

Carrying the work forward

Kate, John, and modern KOZY.

In 2014, Kate’s son John Small began working alongside her and became part of carrying the product-development and business lineage forward. Together, Kate and John continued the hands-on approach that had shaped Kozy Collar and ThermaStretch: notice a real need, work through the problem, and keep improving the solution until it is ready for real people.

That lineage continues in modern KOZY. The products and possibilities have grown, but the instinct behind them remains the same—make things with care, make them useful, and never lose sight of the people they are meant for.

Comfortable being you.

See what we are making now