Elijah Nykamp is in a lane of his own in the fashion world.
Nykamp, owner of Nykamping in Suttons Bay, has a love for both oversized outerwear and thrifting – along with the desire to take textile sustainability, circular fashion, ethically sourced and zero waste to its absolute max, according to his website at nykamping.com Nykamp, 28, has owned the business for nearly a year and he is looking forward to his second summer at the 100 Adams Street shop in the village of Suttons Bay. The second year should bring more unexpectedness just like the first year.
“Doing something full-time that’s creative and diving into it full scale has been really interesting. Very different from what I expected,” Nykamp said. “It’s been way better than I expected and I’ve really loved it. I’ve really, really loved it... We are getting out of winter and it’s been picking up this past weekend. Sunday people were coming out all day long.”
Nykamp prides himself on making clothing collections, but over the winter he couldn’t resist several custom orders.
“I took on custom orders and that got me through the winter and I’m really grateful for it. But that’s kind of like the next goal is to be able to just do what I really love to do. Take the time to make a collection, push it out to the world, and then have it kind of like sell as is,” Nykamp said. “But a really good first year in terms of like, I’m still making it... I’m still paying the rent.”
Nykamp, who’s originally from Holland, graduated from Hope College with an early education degree. After serving as a kindergarten teacher downstate, he got a job at Leelanau School in Glen Arbor four years ago as a supervisor.
“That was basically where I think I found my specific style of fashion, mostly like outerwear. I started by making coats just for myself, and high schoolers are pretty good at telling you when something works and doesn’t,” he said. “They helped me gauge where I was heading whether they say ‘that’s kind of a lot’ or ‘that’s really cool.’” The job at Leelanau School would mostly be from 5 p.m. to 1 a.m., which left all day for Nykamp to sew. By the time he was ready to open up a boutique shop, Nykamp already had 66 unique pieces in his inventory.
During the pandemic, Nykamp got involved as an interior designer for the Foxglove Farm located north of Suttons Bay.
That project took nearly three and a half years while working at Leelanau School and preparing to open his first clothing shop.
“I definitely take on a lot. Just naturally, I have a very high capacity,” he said.
Nykamp can thank his mother Cyndi Nykamp for teaching him the ways of sewing when he was 8-years old.
“I already knew how to actually work a sewing machine before I learned how to construct clothes. I was doing more two dimensional things we kind of call pillowcase and just things that lay flat,” he said.
With the pandemic in full swing, Nykamp took the opportunity to learn the skills needed to make his “tent” like clothing. He learned a lot of those skills through Youtube, aka, Youtube University.
“What do I want to do with my life if I was given just the opportunity to do anything I wanted and it was gardening and sewing. And so I did that like every single day,” he said.
“There’s a construction kind of rhythm that you can get into ... I didn’t really know what came first basically. I’m really good at watching someone do something once and then I can do it. (This past week) I self drafted a shirt with a different collar that I’ve never done before watching YouTube,” Nykamp said.
Nykamp has certainly found a lane with the oversized outerwear.
“Even if it’s not something that necessarily they want to buy into, totally fine, but everyone who comes in respects it, thinks that it’s really special, loves the space,” Nykamp said. “If you love it and you want it forever, then you can buy it. But if you don’t then you shouldn’t buy it.”
Nykamp definitely believes in wearable art.
All of the items made by Nykamp are locally sourced and second hand garments.
“This is something that I can put on to communicate who I am and that’s what we do with art in our homes,” Nykamp said. “Art communicates what we are passionate about and what we want to represent us, and I think that clothes do this exact same thing whether we are conscious of it or not.”
Nykamp is gearing up for a busy spring and summer as he will be launching a new collection at Nykamping. He will also be collaborating with artist and musician Dana Falconberry for a fashion show on May 17 in Traverse City. Then on June 20, Nykamp will be hosting a fashion show called “Summer Solstice” at The Foxglove Farm with Isabelle Scott of Circles & Cycles of Northport to premier specific summer line.
Nykamp can’t help but thank SCORE of Traverse City, a volunteer business management and mentoring consulting firm for small businesses.
“I know we just passed our year of monthly meetings and I have two business mentors and they’re incredible (Tanya Berg and Doug Morgenstern),” Nykamp said. “I push it to all of my friends. I have friends who are thinking about opening a business on businesses, (and I recommend) getting a Score mentor, it’s free.”
