GREENVILLE S.C. (NCC News) — Our nation’s businesses are facing unprecedented economic disruptions due to the coronavirus pandemic. Many business owners have had to stop selling their products and close down. But, one South Carolina business owner was able to increase his success by expanding his bow tie business to include making masks.
Nick Kulmala, owner of A Dapper Sandlapper, has been creating handcrafted bow ties and men’s accessories by himself for the past five years. He got the idea shortly after graduating college.
“I wore bow ties all the time and people knew me for them,” he said. “They would ask if something was wrong if I didn’t have one on. I had been wearing them for a while and I was kind of getting tired of juggling part time jobs and I thought, I think I want to try working for myself. ”
Kulmala said he was getting bored with department store options for bow ties and knew he was creative enough to make his own.
“I actually didn’t know how to sew when I came up with this crazy idea,” he said. “I took a quilting class at a local quilt shop and learned the ins and outs of the machine. Then, I found a couple tutorials online for making bow ties.”
He expanded his bow tie shop into selling men’s accessories such as lapel pins, pocket squares, and cufflinks. He got the idea to sell lapel pins when he refurbished an old game of Scrabble to make custom lettered pieces for his outfits. He even sells bow ties for children and dogs.
“I’m trying to cover all the bases here,” he said. “I’m trying to offer something for everybody.”
When the pandemic hit, he noticed people were not buying bow ties.
“With things getting cancelled and social events dwindling people weren’t going to have much need for bow ties,” he said. “People aren’t going out and about, they aren’t dressing up, they don’t have much to do–especially back in the spring when everybody was just home.”
Kulmala decided he needed a plan to continue making money. He knew he had extra fabric and decided to use it to make one mask. He posted a photo of it on Facebook and told his followers to comment down below if they would like a mask made out of his scrap fabrics.
“That Facebook post ended up giving me orders for close to 100 masks that first evening,” he said. “People I’m friends with on Facebook were sharing it and within a couple days I think I was up to 250 masks and then, I realized I guess this is something promising.”
For several months his masks orders were only advertised on his personal Facebook page because of the large number of requests. Eventually, he caught up on orders and posted masks on his business page. That is when several large orders came in from local businesses wanting to sell his masks in their stores.
“I have done 1,253 masks thus far…probably within a week or two I will have hit 1,400 easily,” he said.
Producing masks led Kulmala to try screen printing for the first time. He bought a kit and completed 150 custom orders for a company.
“I’m glad I got to do it because I had been wanting to get into screen printing and maybe making some fabrics and doing my own designs on stuff,” he said.
He hopes the coronavirus will end soon so he can advertise new products at events and craft shows.
“I was going to be hopping around the southeast doing events and everything started getting cancelled,” he said. “Even now, going into the fall, events are still getting cancelled to where I don’t have anything on the books yet. I haven’t signed up for anything because I know that it is likely going to get cancelled.”
Despite not being able to go to events, the pandemic has brought Kulmala more success.
“Last time I checked I have had higher sales thus far in 2020 than I did this point last year, which is ironic to me,” he said.
Kulmala hopes to be able to continue bow tie sales more heavily during the winter when people are shopping for Christmas gifts. For now, he has slowed down bow tie production.
“I have just been in the mask business so deeply that I don’t have time to do anything but masks,” he said.
He is thankful he was able to pivot his business and learn new skills to make something people need during the pandemic. He knows he will always have loyal bow tie customers and can now match them to masks. He said there is one great thing about bow ties:
“They are always in season,” he said.
