CHARLEVOIX — The new year has started with new ownership for The Clothing Company at 339 Bridge St.

Jacq Dipert, who has owned the store since 1994, officially retired on Jan. 1 and left the store in the hands of her daughter Annie Oosthuizen and her husband Cole.

The Clothing Company was first opened in 1975 by Jacq’s parents, Sue and Jim Mabee, with the goal of creating a space where anyone can shop. Oosthuizen said she wants to continue to run the store in the way her grandparents did — by providing quality merchandise, valuing their customers, ethics and employees.

“It's really important to us that our crew feels supported and then in turn, they're going to do a great job serving our customers,” Oosthuizen said. “We'd never want to scare customers away with our price. And really, since day one, that was super important to my grandparents, who started the store, was that everyone could shop here and everyone could find something here, no matter what you need.”

Oosthuizen spent much of her childhood in the store and worked there for a bit as a teenager. Eventually, she left Charlevoix for college in Illinois where she received a degree in graphic design, met her husband Cole and eventually moved to Colorado.

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“I wanted to leave Northern Michigan so badly,” Oosthuizen said. “And it really wasn't until (Cole and I) came up here together on vacation that I really realized what a great place I grew up in. Especially being in a city, there are positives of course to being around more people and diversity and cultural things, but then to be able to come back here and unwind. I think we both kind of realized this is where we wanted to be.”

Oosthuizen and her husband Cole made the move back to Charlevoix in 2018 and began working at the store. Their plan was to work with Dipert for about five years, learning the ins and outs of running the business and then take over when Dipert retired.

“I realized I was getting close to retirement age and if someone wanted to learn how to run it it was going to take longer than I thought about and I really didn't want to be doing this until I was 80,” Dipert said. “So, I said ‘If you want to come back, it's probably time.’”

Even though the couple took over the store sooner than they planned, Dipert said she feels very comfortable with their ability to run the store.

“I think that with COVID and everything that happened during the pandemic, they get a few big lessons. They learned how to handle the plot twist for sure,” Dipert said. “It just felt like that they were ready for me to go and I felt like I was ready to leave. So it was really a natural progression for me to step aside.”

“I couldn't stand the idea of what if the store goes into someone that's outside of our family, or what if, even worse, we can't find anyone to buy it and then it just closes,” Oosthuizen said. “It's such a staple to the Northern Michigan community. I do enjoy the clothing and the buying and that sort of process, but it was really important to carry on the family legacy and be the third generation.”

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Dipert wrote a letter to her customers, which she sent out to them via email, and Oosthuizen later posted on The Clothing Company Facebook page so Dipert could see the comments left by customers wishing her well.

“Everyone has been so supportive, but they always have been. We have the best customers,” Dipert said. “I always say we have the only customers that actually respond to our email blasts. I mean, who does that? But we actually get messages — ‘Oh, I can't be at the sale but hope you guys are doing well.’ It's just such a great community of customers.”

Like her daughter, Dipert spent much of her childhood in The Clothing Company. She and her siblings worked for her parents at the store and their other businesses. When she left to attend college, she never intended to live in Northern Michigan again, but when her dad called and said he was expanding, he asked if she would like to move back to Charlevoix and work for the family business.

“So I did. And that was kind of the beginning of this being a career for me,” she said.

Dipert did the buying for The Clothing Company and merchandising for the Harbor Wear stores, which her family also owned. In 1994, Dipert’s dad asked if she wanted to buy The Clothing Company and was surprised when she said yes.

“It just seemed like it would be a good living. I wanted to stay in Charlevoix and it's always been like my second home. When we were kids we used to, after school, that's where we went, the store, not home. It's part of our family,” Dipert said.

The rest of the stores owned by her parents also stayed within the family, which Dipert said was never her parents' plan, just the way it happened.

“You never know. It could have been my dad's plan. He never shared it, but it could have been,” Dipert said. “It wasn't really my plan for Annie and Cole to come back and do it. I mean, I was surprised when they said yes. Very happy, but surprised.”

Now a week into retirement, Dipert said she has no plans beyond doing nothing for a while. She takes a walk down the beach everyday and said eventually, she is considering doing some outdoor-related volunteering.

Oosthuizen said she and her husband were nervous going into the new year knowing they would be taking on the business with 48 years of family history behind it, but customers and the Charlevoix community have been very welcoming to them.

“We were nervous,” Oosthuizen said. “I mean, I think (Dipert) was nervous to see what she was going to get up to in retirement and we were nervous, of course for the responsibility. But all in all, everyone's been so supportive.”

— Contact reporter Tess Ware at tware@petoskeynews.com. Follow her on Twitter, @Tess_Petoskey.

This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Clothing Company passes to third generation owners