Meet Niko Nelson

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Niko Nelson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Niko , appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?

I’ve become resilient in life because I had to at a young age – around 5 to be exact. Growing up in a broken home with two drug addicts as parents was a constant struggle throughout my entire childhood from seeing my mom get arrested in front of me at 5 and then going mute for 3 years because of that trauma puts a lot of things in perspective as a child. When you don’t have your voice you really get a chance to figure out the world in an alternate way than others, like learning at a young age to read body language and to know when the situation or my environment wasn’t safe to be in anymore and when to get out of it.

Later when my mom got out of prison she taught me a lot, like how to protect myself in the rough areas we were living in. I even leaned how to cook for myself and my mom when she got diagnosed with cancer. Later on my mom and I had to take care of my father who became very ill from COPD and later on passed at our apartment. That was when I was 14. It showed me life is very unpredictable and unpleasant at times and there are always going to be obstacles but that doesn’t mean you stop or give up. You embrace them and learn from them. It also showed me the importance of showing people you love that you loved them and to remember the world is so much bigger than just yourself. Once you discover this and you learn to work with others life becomes a bit easier. A lot less rigid and hard . A lot more bearable.

Resilience is my life as a queer poor trans man from the Midwest. Resilience is something you don’t need money to have; you just need a willingness to keep your head up no matter who is trying to shut you down or stop you. You get one life and I’m not going to live my life apologizing or not being me so others can feel more “comfortable”. I didn’t fight for all my life just to not be my true self in the end,

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

I discovered fashion at an early age wearing all the food pantry free clothes but making it work with some fierce looks in my humble opinion! When the pandemic hit in 2020 I said alright it’s time to get yourself a sewing machine and start this process.

I started Queer Suave garment house – a place where queer and trans folks can come and get custom made garments made from scratch to their body’s measurements. I make garments they can have that are completely custom, unique, and something they can feel euphoric wearing.

Throughout my rough life I discovered the power of gender euphoria the empowerment it gives you. It’s happiness no one can take. You don’t necessarily need money or a special job to experience gender euphoria, you might just need something (like a cool outfit) you can put on and finally be able to take that picture or walk out the door with a smile knowing you feel incredible and that this look is uniquely yours.

I feel very grateful I could do this for folks because this saved my life. This skill and this garment house allowed me be able to push through all those hardships it took to be here . This literally gave me life in many ways.

Sewing and leather-making is incredible and I feel so lucky to have my tools, my machines, my fabric, my leather and my clients . I’m fully self taught and I do everything from pattern making to custom designs to construction of the garments to my own product photography. You might say I’m a man of many skills!

I love fashion and I love everything about it – the self expression, the uniqueness, the queerness. I love the happiness I can bring to my community. Happiness and acceptance are so important for the queer community, especially in the current state of the world. I make it my goal every day to be be able to give queer and trans folks a safe space to be able to express themselves unapologetically and most importantly, euphorically.

My goal for the next 10 years is to have a place where queer folks can come and get custom garments made and get to and touch and choose the fabrics and be involved in every part of the process if they want. It would also be a place where folks can come and hang out learn about the history of fashion and learn how to sew and create. I hope to have this center one day once I have all resources and support I need. This center will be a safe space for everyone, especially queer folks, to come and create and feel loved and welcomed.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

1. Learning the history of what you’re doing. Look into how it started, what the challenges were and how they overcome it. Also what resources they had to do this. And remember to appreciate how far it’s come since then.

2. Don’t rush the process just so you can complete it. Remember that rushing something isn’t always the most efficient and can sometimes lead to needing to re do or start from scratch because of the silly mistakes that happened because of rushing. I’ve gone through so much supplies by doing this.

Also don’t hesitate to practice first, and keep practicing until you like this final product. Then start the process after you have a few rounds in your belt.

3. Humble yourself & don’t be afraid to ask for help.

I thought I needed to do everything myself and I needed to go as fast as I possibly could . But sometimes you just need to slow down and realize you are fully teaching yourself something brand new and it’s okay to not be good at it at first and to ask others for tips and help during the process.

How can folks who want to work with you connect?

I hope in the next 5-10 years to collaborate with a group of artists/crafters to build a community space/ center were we can all share and teach our crafts to the queer/trans community.

I picture this space to be an old factory building turned into a big shared space full of queer owned and operated small businesses where we can all come together to create something special for the queer and trans community.

We could offer free sewing lessons and an open studio with free materials so anyone can learn and create how they’d like.

We could host fashion shows where we fundraise for queer/trans youth to go to art/fashion school so they can learn and grow without having to worry about financials barriers.

Most importantly, I want this space to feel safe and welcoming so that folks feel excited to come and learn and work on projects while building community at the same time. Queer and trans folks deserve to feel safe and welcomed. They deserve to learn without having that opportunity taken away because of money or lack of space. They deserve to discover fashion and new skills freely. I want to be able to give them the tools I never had and the opportunities I never had. I want to change that for the next generation.

If you want to help this vision become a reality or collaborate on fashion, you can email me at nikonelson12369@gmail.com.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://queersuavebyniko.square.site/
• Instagram: Queersuavebyniko
• Facebook: Niko Nelson or Queer suave by Niko page
• Youtube: Queersuavebyniko