Beyond the Shopify Template — A Storefront as Tailored as the Suits
bij Knaap is a Dutch tailoring house — suits for him, dresses for her. They wanted a storefront as considered as their clothing, without leaving Shopify. Nomulock AI built them a fully custom, headless website: Shopify still runs every product and order, while the front end is designed from scratch and editable by the team.
100%
custom design
Beyond templates
A bespoke storefront designed from scratch — none of Shopify's stock themes
Shopify
as the engine
Same back office
Products, stock, pricing, orders and checkout stay exactly where the team already works
Sanity
CMS
Edit without code
Pages, journal, store info and homepage sections are editable live — no developer needed
~5 sec
to publish
Instant updates
Content and product changes appear on the live site in about five seconds
Any button
→ any collection
Fully wireable
Connect any collection to any button or nav link, all controlled from the CMS
Mobile-first
responsive
Clean on phones
Reworked grid, navigation and type for a polished small-screen experience
The Problem
Great Tailoring, a Generic Storefront
bij Knaap is a Dutch tailoring house, dressing both men and women — suits cut from English wool and Italian canvas, made to be worn for years. The product is anything but generic. The website was.
Like many growing brands, bij Knaap ran on Shopify, which is excellent for managing products, stock and orders. But the storefront leaned on a stock theme, and it showed: it looked like countless other shops, and it didn't carry the sense of craft that defines the brand.
They didn't want to abandon Shopify — the back office works, and the team knows it. What they wanted was a front end that looked like them: cleaner, more professional, more considered — and one they could shape themselves without a developer on standby for every change.
The Approach
Keep Shopify, Replace the Front End
Rather than fight Shopify's theme system, Nomulock AI went headless: Shopify keeps doing what it does best — products, variants, pricing, inventory, cart and checkout — while the entire storefront is rebuilt as a custom site that talks to Shopify through its Storefront API.
On top of that sits Sanity, a content layer the team can edit themselves. Homepage sections, journal articles, store pages, promos and — crucially — which collection each button or menu item points to are all controlled from a simple studio, with changes live on the site in about five seconds and no deployment.
The design itself was built from scratch into a small, deliberate system — a warm ink-and-paper palette, hairline borders, a paired display and body typeface, and a mobile-first grid — researched against premium fashion retailers so the result feels contemporary and high-end rather than templated. It's hosted on Vercel and tuned for performance on phones, where most shoppers actually are.
What We Built
A Custom Front End on a Shopify Foundation
A Custom Look, Not a Template
Before
bij Knaap sells tailored suits and dresses, but their site looked like every other Shopify shop — a stock theme that didn't match the craftsmanship of the product or the feel of the brand.
What We Built
- A bespoke design system drawn from research into premium fashion retailers — a warm ink-and-paper palette, hairline borders and a paired display + body typeface
- Full-bleed editorial heroes, a refined 2:3 product grid and a slim, three-zone header
- Sentence-case typography and restrained, transform-only motion for a calm, contemporary feel
Outcome
A storefront that looks designed for bij Knaap — professional, distinctive and unmistakably theirs.
Shopify Stays the Engine
Before
They didn't want to leave Shopify. Their products, stock, pricing and orders all live there, and the team already knows the back office inside out.
What We Built
- A headless storefront wired to the Shopify Storefront API for products, variants, pricing and inventory
- Cart and checkout delegated to Shopify, so payments and orders run through the system they already trust
- Per-product detail — materials & care, shipping, alterations, in-store availability — pulled straight from Shopify
Outcome
Nothing changed in how they run the shop. The same Shopify back office now powers a far better front end.
Connect Any Collection to Any Button
Before
Changing a banner, a featured collection or a page used to need a developer. bij Knaap wanted to run the storefront themselves.
What We Built
- Sanity as the content layer for homepage sections, journal articles, store pages and site copy — edited in a friendly studio
- Owner-controlled buttons and navigation: link any collection to any button or menu item without touching code
- Edits publish to the live site in about five seconds, with no deployment step
Outcome
The team curates the storefront themselves — collections, journal, pages and promos — and sees it live in seconds.
Clean on Every Screen
Before
Most of their shoppers browse on a phone, where a generic theme felt cramped, slow and off-brand.
What We Built
- A mobile-first build: a 2-column grid, hamburger navigation with Heren/Dames tabs, and type and spacing tuned for small screens
- Performance work — lazy-loaded imagery, a preloaded hero, link prerendering and a no-flash loading mask
- A full-screen, pinch-zoom product image viewer for inspecting fabric and fit
Outcome
A fast, polished experience that looks intentional on a phone — not a desktop layout squeezed to fit.
The Real Outcome
A Storefront the Brand Owns — Inside and Out
The result is a website that finally matches the product. Customers land on a clean, editorial storefront; behind it, Shopify quietly runs the commerce exactly as before. Browsing, filtering, the product pages and checkout all feel considered — and on a phone, where most of the shopping happens, it looks intentional rather than cramped.
Just as importantly, bij Knaap can run it themselves. Products and stock go through Shopify; everything else — homepage, journal, store pages, promos and which collection each button points to — is edited in Sanity and live within seconds. No theme constraints, no developer in the loop for routine changes.
They now have
- A fully custom storefront that looks nothing like a stock Shopify theme
- Shopify still running every product, price, order and checkout behind the scenes
- A Sanity CMS to edit pages, journal, stores and the homepage — no code, live in seconds
- Any collection wireable to any button or navigation link, controlled by the team
- A mobile-first, performance-tuned site that stays clean on every screen
See it for yourself
Explore the live bij Knaap store
The Takeaway
bij Knaap's project shows you don't have to choose between Shopify's reliability and a genuinely custom storefront. Keep the commerce engine you already trust, and replace only the part your customers actually see — the design.
It's a template for any established brand stuck inside a stock theme: the boutique that wants to look like itself, the retailer whose products deserve better presentation, the owner who'd rather edit their own site than file a ticket every time a collection changes.
Your products are already yours. Your storefront should be too.
Ready to Transform Your Business?
Let's Build Your Storefront
Schedule a consultation and we'll map how a custom front end could lift your brand — without leaving the tools you already run on.