Beyond ‘Shark Tank’: A closer look at the creative life of Lord von Schmitt, fashionista

Schuyler Ellers knows there’s art in the old Afghan that sits in his workspace. How it will take shape is yet to be revealed.

“A lot of it is like… spending some time with it figuring out which way does it go?” Ellers said. “How does it turn into clothing? And then once I do it, once I see it and I know what it is, it really goes very fast.”

Welcome to the world of an up-and-coming designer who lives a quirky existence on the outskirts of Nevada City.

There’s the converted barn that Ellers, 45, lives in — a little drafty, but with plenty of space for him to play records and DJ for his friends. An exterior bathroom Ellers built has a large tub that he got from a church in Sacramento that had intended to use it for baptisms but never did.

Then there’s the craft room with Ellers’ lifeblood: 100 or so crocheted blankets, which he repurposes into items like pararols and shorts as part of his high-end Lord von Schmitt fashion line. Ellers will work in this room early in the morning, late at night, whenever the mood strikes.

Ellers, like many early-stage entrepreneurs, tried and failed to get funded on the popular show “Shark Tank,” in an episode that first aired in 2020, with judges expressing concern about his price point. “You hand-make each and every one of these things,” Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban said during the segment. “It’s a piece of art. Sell it that way.”

Still, this televised setback has not deterred Ellers from living life on his own terms.

Origins of Lord von Schmitt

Lord von Schmitt, fashionista, was born in the 1990s on Ellers’ dorm signup sheet at Columbia University.

“I just put my name on it,” Ellers said. “Then I think everyone got drunk. And then it ended up being this long sentence where they added all these things.”

Amidst the additions to his name on the sign-up sheet, Lord von Schmitt was born.

It would be many more years, though, before the name became his brand. For a time after college, Ellers, whose family goes back several generations in Nevada City, traveled the world and lived in different places, first learning to work with yarn during a stint in Barcelona.

Ellers returned to Nevada City around 2008, got into repurposing Afghan blankets and opened an Etsy shop not long thereafter. He lives on approximately 10 acres of land owned by his parents, who live nearby.

Sarah Griffin-Boubacar, a close friend who has done some paid work calling prospective investors for Ellers in recent years, first met him in the early 2010s when he came as a plus-one to her wedding.

“He was dressed all in velvet and he was wearing Elvis glasses and he was going by the name Velvis,” Griffin-Boubacar said. “And I loved him instantly.”

Another friend, Alex Henderson met Ellers around the same time, through gatherings for the local artistic community in Nevada City. “I gravitated towards him because he’s very expressive and fun,” Henderson said. “I like that in a person.”

Business increased for Ellers in 2015, due to a spike in interest online, at the time of a yearly trip he was taking to India. His mother called DeeDee Brownell, a local seamstress she’d been a customer of for 15 years, asking if Brownell might help out with sewing some shorts for Ellers’ online store while he was gone.

“As he’s flying to India, the site goes viral,” Brownell said. “There’s like 40 orders and then there’s 90.”

The number of orders kept growing, to more than 150, maybe as many as 300, with Brownell unclear on the exact total. Whatever the precise number wound up being, it was enough that Ellers cut his trip short and it took him and Brownell two months to fill the orders.

‘Shark Tank’ and beyond

In 2019, Ellers went to film his episode of “Shark Tank,” the show where a group of prospective investors like Cuban or FUBU founder Daymond John hear pitches from people with a small business they’d like to scale.

Ellers walked away knowing that all of the sharks had declined his offer of a 10% stake in his business in exchange for $100,000 of funding. While some of the sharks such as Kevin O’Leary expressed interest during Ellers’ pitch, they had concerns about him not selling his wares at high enough prices.

When the episode aired in May 2020, a funny thing happened: Ellers began to notice an uptick in phone calls, messages and sales as the episode aired in successive time zones.

“What’s great about it is that it’s not over,” Ellers said. “I’m still getting revenue out of reruns.”

In the meantime, Ellers has also continued to pursue other revenue streams, such as selling his wares locally.

Cedar Rushin met Ellers when he bought a parasol from him at a clothing pop-up around 2021, not long after Rushin and his husband moved to town. Rushin quickly bonded with Ellers, who is openly gay.

“His spirit is very uplifting,” Rushin said.

Beyond this, Ellers has had a parasol in a Sky Vodka campaign. He said he’s been pursuing a licensing deal with representatives of a famed musical artist Ellers is hesitant to name publicly.

He’s also raised more than $32,000 from a crowdfunding campaign connected to O’Leary. The campaign, which is scheduled to run until Dec. 14, is being done for Lord von Designs, a new corporation that “has been assigned all Lord von Schmitt intellectual property and has not yet produced any apparel,” according to the campaign.

“My goals are to go from what is a repurposed fashion movement to a fashion movement that can reach a lot more people,” Ellers said.

Ellers warns people when they trek out to his home that they might scrape the underside of their cars on the steep dirt road in. He welcomes friends like Amanda Chavez, owner of Nevada City shop Rainbow Rocket Marketplace to the home, where Chavez has even been able to do a little sewing.

“He just really makes it an inviting environment,” said Chavez, who once sang “Bohemian Rhapsody” for charity with Ellers, a gifted pianist, accompanying her musically.

Asked if it’s worth it to him to live the way he does, Ellers answers affirmatively and with no hesitation whatsoever.

“I don’t know that I would have gotten anywhere with a job,” Ellers said. “What I’m doing now, I can keep dreaming of that next thing, I can keep going after it. I think my life would be boring if I just had a job.”