How this designer from Suttons Bay transformed a thrifty pastime into an vibrant new store
By Craig Manning | November 25, 2023
” I believe there are many things in the fashion industry that make people feel incredibly poor about themselves. My objective is the exact opposite.
According to Elijah Nykamp, the proprietor, revolutionary, designer, sewist, and nygamping’s only employee. The store store, which debuted this past July in downtown Suttons Bay, “originated from a love both for large outerwear and thrifting—along with the desire to get textile sustainability, circular fashion, morally sourced, and zero waste to its utter maximum.” The store specializes in spacious, one-of-a-kind garments that adheres to nykamping’s tagline,” A camp for your body.”
Nykamp sees his job as mission-driven, and a large portion of that vision has to do with rejecting the norms of the fashion world. He hand-sews every nymamping piece himself from an assortment of recovered and reused textiles. According to Nykamp, style can have the effect of demeaning people by forcing people to follow the newest trends or conform to particular body types or standards of beauty. He generally aims to raise them.
Nykamp explains,” I want to help individuals get back that control.” I want you to dress so that you can convey confidence and show people who you are, not so much that your clothes wear you and determine how you feel. My pieces are large and typically one length fits, so their purpose is not to give you an hourglass shape or be conventionally “flattering.” Their work is to display originality. Their task is to start conversations. Their responsibility is to let a person’s character definitely come through.
pursuing the Muse
The idea of letting your personality shine through no matter what serves as the main lesson from Nykamp’s thus far successful business trip.
Nykamp was planning to pursue a career in teaching until recently. He graduated from Hope College in 2018 with a bachelor’s degree in early childhood education, and the following year he spent teaching school in an institution in Nigeria.
While I loved working with the boys, he says,” I realized in that year that the sections I enjoyed the most were around creating.” I was aware that I desired to work on more designs.
Instead of suppressing that urge, Nykamp made a leap of faith. He relocated to Leelanau County and began devoting more of his day to artistic endeavors. He had a “day work” to pay the bills at The Leelanau School, where he worked for three and half years as the house caregiver and eventually as head of home. However, the task gave him more free time than a teaching position, and immediately he was starting the nykamping grains.
Nykamp claims,” I do n’t have a degree in design, sewing, garment production, fashion, or anything like that.” ” I learned all of these skills from my mother when I was a kid, and I picked them up much more strongly during COVID, when we were all figuring out what we really enjoyed doing with our free time.”
Nykamp claims that the other piece of the puzzle resulted from just spending time in thrift shops and gaining a sense of style as well as an idea of what he wanted his model to be.
He claims that” I was buying and selling thrifted clothing during COVID.” ” I was discovering some really fantastic parts and simply reselling them on Instagram.” I immediately began to change items. I would alter shirts in various ways or add a new skirt, and I began to sell those designs. I’ve eventually started working in the garment industry and creating my own parts from scratch over the past year.
Nykamp seized the opportunity to expand his all-online company into the brick-and-mortar financial sector earlier this year. A few blocks from his room, in city Suttons Bay, a space became available, so he grabbed it. Nykamp describes the shift into public-facing wholesale as “deciding to push my five-year fantasy to a six-month dream,” which happened much more quickly than he had anticipated.
locating an market
While the fast switch from an online seller to a main street retailer has caused some growing pains, Nykamp claims it has also provided very satisfying proof that he made the right decision in abandoning his initial career path to pursue his muse.
For example, during his first two weeks with a shop this summer, Nykamp sold through half of his stock. Additionally, despite the fact that income have somewhat decreased in the off-season, Nykamp claims he is still receiving a lot of foot traffic. Maybe more significantly, Nykamp has had more opportunities to establish relationships with the neighborhood as a result of the fall’s downturn.
Nykamp tells Northern Express,” I realized throughout the summer that, yes, it’s really great to have a lot of profits, those are certainly essential.” However, I believe that a prosperous time goes far beyond the number of sales. I’ve had wonderful conversations with clients about body positivity, jute conservation, and the employment opportunities that clothing offers. People are always coming up with fantastic thoughts, and I’ve enjoyed hearing their viewpoints.
All of those discussions have even given Nykamp the chance to learn gaming, a fundamental skill he claims is essential to the success of nykgamping. Nykamp runs the factory and makes the pieces—often at the same time—as the only employee of the company.
According to Nykamp, “multitasking is actually a very unique aspect of my kiosk and my business.” ” You find the complete picture of what’s going on these if you walk into the shop.” There is n’t any behind-the-scenes activity. There is no separation. Individuals who see me working at my knitting machine are aware that I have worked on every one piece that is on the ground.
Quilts made of heritage and river letters
There are numerous items as well. For example, late in the summer, Nykamp released “lake letters,” a 39-piece series based on and inspired by Mae Stier’s book of poems and essays, an Empire-based author and photographer. The series, which was referred to as “flowy, calming, green, and one of a kind,” included patterns, colors, textures, as well as an entire aesthetic that resembled sand dunes and waves in northern Michigan.
Now that spring is approaching, Nykamp is working on his newest set, “heirloom,” a series of “weekly Friday mini-drops” that feature brand-new quilt pieces. According to Nykamp,” I have been collecting quilts for ages, but I’m not sure what I wanted to do with them in the end.” He got the idea from the reputation of an earlier collection that made quilts into coats.
He claims that “quilts tell us reports.” ” They have such a rich story.” It’s common to have pillows that are given to children or passed down through generations, particularly in Michigan and the rest of the Midwest. It feels great to have the quilts I’m using filter back into the neighborhood where they came from because I wanted to celebrate that record and heritage and because they were both donated by locals or purchased directly.
When it comes to sourcing materials as morally as possible, quilts also have the advantage of being a pretty clear example of Nykamp’s principles. Quilts are” society’s longest case of slow clothing, unique design, and luxury home textiles,” according to Nykamp, who also notes that these qualities make them ideal for his distinctive approach to clothing design.
The Ideal Slow Fashion
One advantage for Nykamp is that, today, instead of having to go out and look for garments, the materials are coming to him as nykgamping becomes more of a known commodities in the north Michigan area.
Prior to opening his shop, Nykamp had frequently visit second stores Samaritan’s Closet and the Womens Resource to look for “local and pre-loved” items. To a certain extent, he also does that, but now users are also bringing him sacks of fabric, from quilts to used clothes to tiny pieces of unused material.
According to Nykamp, this pattern in consumer behavior indicates that citizens are adopting a new routine for their attire habits —one that rejects the wasteful, polluting, factory-to-landfill circle that has long defined fast style.
Slow style is a good way to describe the nykamping approach, yet beyond his fabric sourcing and his propensity for recycling and repurposing. According to Nykamp, making some things in the store took 15 to 20 hours. The costs of the clothing reflect all of that labor and time, which helps to explain Nykamp’s obsession with finding the ideal buyer for each cloth and vice versa.
According to Nykamp,” I think that style is art and fashion are selections.” ” People who end up buying my pieces, that is a truly purposeful thing—both because of the financial investment and the confidence it takes to make that style option.” I enjoy hearing that someone is so enamored with the part that they are open to numerous comments.
These remarks are made as a result of nykamping models ‘ propensity to have out rather than blend in. For Nykamp, however, the beauty of the job itself as well as the user who chooses to purchase it is that unmistakable quality.
According to Nykamp,” I just heard from a lady who purchased one from me and wore it while traveling all the way to California.” In every position she visited, she claimed to have received compliments or a conversation about that layer. If you were making a more subdued clothing decision, you might not find that. I therefore adore the idea that it will be an option for the people who are buying my pieces. Wow, I wish I felt like I could take something like that off. It’s an opportunity to convey trust, attract attention, and make people envious.
Visit nykamping.com for more information. taken by Mae Stier.