Scandal engulfs 'it girl' fashion empire Set Active: Explosive claims about influencer founder's desperate fixation... 'inappropriate' texts that went ignored... and why employees wanted to stay on her 'good side'

 On the surface, Set Active, the Los Angeles-based activewear brand founded by Lindsey Carter, looks like a success story, boasting a massive cult following among influencers.

But behind the scenes at Set Active, an allegedly 'toxic' office culture defined by high turnover rates, Carter's supposed desire to be seen as 'cool' and her alleged decision to 'play favorites' with employees has overshadowed Set Active's otherwise promising rise in the fashion world, sources say.

With a fresh scandal brewing over what appears to be disparaging remarks Carter, 35, made about plus-sized models sent over text, the widespread backlash may serve to topple the 'cool girl' fashion empire Carter has built.

Speaking exclusively to the Daily Mail, multiple former employees of Set Active have confirmed that the shocking text message in question did indeed come from Carter. 

Now, Set Active insiders are wondering exactly what it would take for customers to swear off the brand – and Carter – entirely.

'This is who she is. This screenshot is not surprising in the slightest,' said a former Set Active employee who voluntarily left the company in the fall of 2023. 

Set Active was founded in 2018 after Carter, then-known by her maiden name Lindsey Bresnick, claimed to notice a gap in the market for functional athleisure for women with busy lifestyles. The brand offers an array of sports bras, biker shorts and workout leggings in a variety of trendy colorways for anywhere from $50 to upwards of $150.

But this month, a screenshot of a text message supposedly sent by Carter found its way onto a Reddit forum for Set Active customers.

'Just a little reminder this is who you're supporting this week,' the anonymous Reddit user posted.

Alongside the post was a screenshot of a partially redacted text chain that appeared to include Carter. The first text message sent in the chain was a photo of a model, posing casually in athleisure with her foot resting on her thigh.

It is understood by the Daily Mail that a member of Set Active's creative team had sent the photo of the model to Carter as inspiration.

In response, Carter replied: 'It's such an effortless photo I just think using a plus size model takes away from the effortless cool girl vibe we are trying to emulate in the photo.' 

One ex-staffer, who chose to leave Set Active in fall 2023 after less than a year with the company, claimed it wasn't a 'sustainable' environment in which to work. Another claimed they were let go from the company within months of their employment due to costs, while a third had been with Carter since the early days of Set Active before their departure due to impending layoffs.

When she began running Set Active from inside her West Hollywood apartment, Carter was $20,000 in credit card debt, she has publicly shared. Seven years later, Set Active has become the ultimate success story for fellow young entrepreneurs hoping to make it in the fashion industry.

In May 2025, Set Active boasted perhaps its biggest achievement yet, earning $1 million in sales in just one hour for its first-ever resort collection, according to Forbes.

Then in early 2026, Set Active bested its own record by netting $1 million in sales for its Valentine's Day collection in just four minutes, Carter wrote. Today, it is estimated the brand earns approximately $20 million in annual revenue.

As a former social media manager herself, Carter has maintained that the key to the brand's success is Set Active's ability to tap into its dedicated community. Online, the company caters to its customer base of predominantly young women through viral TikTok trends, themed pop-ups and influencer-friendly events.

Even Hailey Bieber has been photographed wearing Set Active, and Kendall Jenner's 818 Tequila brand collaborated with Set Active for a limited-edition collection last year. 

The seal of approval from celebrity 'it' girls like Bieber and Jenner was likely a major feat for Carter, sources suggested, as they claimed she has an apparent unquenchable desire to be seen as cool herself.   

'She has this desperate need to be cool and liked and loved by everyone,' a former employee said.

Despite growing up in the celebrity-filled Los Angeles suburb of Beverly Hills – in a five-bedroom, four-bathroom home with a palatial in-ground pool that was sold in 2012 for $3.63 million – Carter has often professed in interviews that she wasn't born with a silver spoon in her mouth.

The middle child between two older sisters and a younger brother, she lost her mom at a young age following a battle with lupus and Crohn's disease. She graduated from the famed Beverly Hills High School in 2009 and enrolled at the University of Arizona, where she initially studied early childhood education and dreamed of being a kindergarten teacher.

She also met her soon-to-be husband, real estate agent Garrett Carter, at the University of Arizona. They were married in 2019. Today, the couple lives with their two children in a 3,594sq ft home in Beverly Hills, which they purchased in May 2021 for $5.2 million.

Carter soon realized that she wasn't passionate about teaching, and took up a minor in communications. After graduating, she worked as an assistant at NBCUniversal and social media marketing jobs at Trendera and Variety, before starting her own social media agency.

As the story goes, Carter was sitting in a coffee shop in Los Angeles when she noticed several women wearing mismatched workout tops and leggings. At the time, Carter explained how brands such as Lululemon and Alo Yoga were primarily catered to women who work out 'hardcore.' It was then she decided to create an athleisure brand for the 'everyday' girl, whether that girl made it to the gym or not.

Carter has acknowledged in interviews that she had zero experience in manufacturing prior to launching an athleisure brand. Still, former employees bemoaned what they described as a 'chaotic' management style, in which Carter would 'totally change her mind' and make intense demands. 

When asked by the Daily Mail to describe their experiences working at Set Active, 'soul-sucking' and 'miserable' were just a few of the choice words used by the three former employees. 

They claimed that Carter's tendency to play favorites with employees was what contributed the most to Set Active's allegedly 'toxic' workplace culture.

'Lindsey played these crazy favorites with people, where all of a sudden she would love bomb them, make them her best friend and then everybody else in the office were kind of second-class citizens. Then all of a sudden, she would decide one day she's done with you,' they said.

The first insider described the environment as 'catty,' similar to the uncomfortable feeling of walking into a room where you were just being talked about.

'There was a moment in time where I felt like Lindsey really liked me,' they shared. 

'She kind of goes through these phases with some of her employees, where she chooses you and you become her favorite, you get to chat with her and be in the office with her. You guys have lunch together and if you stay on that good side, you're fine – which basically means you do whatever she says.

'I had a lot of opinions and a lot of things to say, and I don't think that was appreciated at all.' 

To some longtime fans of Set Active, this may not entirely come as a surprise. 

Whispers of negative reviews on Glassdoor, an online platform where current and former employees can anonymously rate their companies, have long plagued Set Active's reputation.

The company currently holds a 2.8 out of five-star rating on Glassdoor, with complaints about high turnover, poor employee morale, an 'emotionally volatile' environment and disorganized leadership common among the reviews.

'Literally every single thing on there is true,' a third former employee claimed to the Daily Mail.

For a company with such a seemingly high turnover rate, one would wonder exactly how thorough the hiring process is at Set Active. When searching for new talent, insiders all agreed that Carter's main objective was hiring employees who fit a 'cool girl' vibe, regardless of whether they met the qualifications for the role.

'The cool girl thing, that's all she cares about. She doesn't care about social analytics and what it means to actually grow and scale. She just likes what looks cool,' one said.

But it would be a quick fall from grace when those employees inevitably didn't meet the expectations of the role, becoming Carter's 'worst enemy' as a former employee described.

This is not the first time Carter and Set Active have come under fire online. 

In 2023, Carter faced intense scrutiny when she revealed in a TikTok video that Set Active 'no longer has a social media team.' In the video, which was subsequently deleted, Carter explained that Set Active's social media team had been redistributed into what she called a 'Super Set.'

At the time, she explained that Set Active's ten employees in creative roles would work collaboratively across the brand's social and marketing channels, rather than one designated social media team. Carter's video received widespread backlash as critics assumed she had laid off Set Active's staff altogether, prompting Carter to temporarily deactivate her personal Instagram.

Two years later, Carter would once again find herself at the center of a firestorm when she posted a now-deleted TikTok video about work-life balance. In the clip, the Set Active founder criticized workers who 'sprint out of their offices at 5pm like it's a fire drill' yet wonder why they feel unfulfilled in their careers.

She called out workers who perform 'the bare minimum' at their jobs, and encouraged viewers to 'stay late' if they want to succeed.

The backlash was swift, as critics suggested Carter was promoting unpaid work and ignoring burnout. She later took to her Instagram Story and Substack to defend herself, saying she was the victim of an internet 'pile-on' and she 'grew up in a culture where hard work pays off.'

That was followed by another perceived blunder just four months later, when Set Active dropped a new collection in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. As part of the limited-edition line, dubbed 'Set for a Cure,' a portion of each purchase would be donated to support the Susan G Komen foundation.

But when it was revealed that just two percent of the sales would be donated, customers said they were 'insulted' by the small amount and accused Set Active of 'pink washing' – a type of marketing that aligns itself with breast cancer awareness to promote its own products for a profit.

In response to the backlash, Carter told critics their two percent donation would equate to over $10,000, and she was 'really proud of that number' because 'running a business costs money.'

Despite Carter initially going on the defensive, Set Active later issued a statement from the brand's Instagram account, acknowledging they 'fell short' with the limited-edition collection and increased their donation to $95,000. 

The statement has since been removed from the Set Active official Instagram.

The series of public embarrassments and social media blowback seems to be a common streak for Carter, who one source said appears to 'say anything on camera without thinking at all.'

Now, as Carter's apparent comments about plus-sized models make their way across Reddit and Instagram, both customers and critics alike are wondering whether the Set Active founder will attempt to sweep yet another controversy under the rug.

When asked about Carter's text message, a former employee suggested the Set Active founder made similar 'inappropriate' comments 'all of the time.'

The first insider confirmed as much when they described creative pitch meetings at Set Active, claiming that Carter would 'conveniently' pass over campaign images featuring a curve model.

'She wouldn't have a reason,' they said. 'She'd just be like, "It's not the vibe, it's not what we're going for."'

According to sources, Carter's text message went ignored in the Set Active group chat.

'It was honestly awful. It was just sort of heartbreaking and really inappropriate. It made everybody really uncomfortable,' they said, while the third ex-employee claimed 'everyone was absolutely appalled' by Carter's text message.

Set Active's ascent from its self-described 'scrappy' beginnings in Carter's West Hollywood apartment to a leading name in the activewear space has largely been due to its dedicated community. 

In interviews, Carter has even prided herself on being 'so inclusive' of that community, and 'creating a space where people feel connected.'

To former employees of Set Active, however, it seems the only thing that is standing in the way of Set Active's fullest potential is Carter herself.

'If people choose to buy from Set Active, that is an active choice that you're making and choosing to ignore everything else,' they said.

Set Active and representatives for Carter did not respond to the Daily Mail's requests for comment.