Life’s a Breeze
Lexbreezy Hawai‘i founder Alexis Akiona is spreading aloha daily with her ever-growing fashion empire and philanthropic efforts. | Photo by Lawrence Tabudlo
As Alexis Akiona gets seated at her table for lunch, a waitress immediately comes by to compliment her beautiful, bold, aloha-print jumper.
“Where did you get it from?” the waitress asks.
“Lexbreezy,” Akiona replies with a sheepish smile.
“Of course, it’s Lexbreezy,” says the waitress.
Akiona responds with a grateful grin. She’s received enough compliments on her outfits to have this routine down, and no longer feels the need to share that she is, in fact, Lexbreezy.
The name Lexbreezy Hawai‘i, came to Akiona easily. After all, her Instagram (@lexbreezy) already had a loyal following of tens of thousands. She’d created the handle in 2012 when she was the face of popular street-wear company Farmers Market Hawai‘i. But after two years of working with the brand, she decided to venture out and start her own business.
Although fashion runs in her blood — her mother is Lola Miller, owner of the popular Hawaiian clothing brand Simply Sisters by Lola Miller Designs in Hilo — she didn’t know the first thing about starting her own clothing line.
“It wasn’t where I grew up sewing or any of that,” says Akiona, who was born and raised in Hilo and graduated from Waiākea High School in 2011. “It just was an idea that I loved working in fashion, I loved creating, I see the process and that I really wanted to just start something of my own — something that I could really make a legacy of and be proud of.”
And a legacy is exactly what she’s made.
Lexbreezy Hawai‘i, which will celebrate its ninth anniversary in April, has three storefronts — in Ala Moana Center, Kailua and Pearlridge Center — and will be opening a fourth sometime this year.
The company is known for its custom cut-and-sewn clothing, which boasts one-of-a-kind signature styles with a modern twist of aloha. Akiona was inspired by her mother’s hardworking ethic and traditional aloha-wear brand but wanted to create something more contemporary.
“It was the idea that I wanted to create something that I loved to wear; that I could wear every day; that it was comfortable; that it was kind of sexy, flirty, cute; more of what my generation wanted to wear,” recalls Akiona. “That gap was bringing in the new generation — the millennial generation — into aloha wear, which there was hardly any at the time.”
Akiona started doing pop-ups with Lexbreezy Hawai‘i — her first was at the 2014 Merrie Monarch Festival where she debuted 50 one-size-fits-all T-shirt dresses that sold out in 10 minutes.
“That was the ‘aha’ moment for me,” Akiona says. “This is what I love to do. I love the process. It’s not even that feeling of selling out. It’s the process from the sketch to the design to working with the manufacturers and just the motivation and the determination about bringing something from sketch all the way to it being on a model to hung and sewed.”
She had another epiphany that day. Akiona told herself that if she wanted to take this seriously, and have others to take her seriously as well, she would have to be all in.
So, she enrolled in Honolulu Community College’s Fashion Technology Program. It was a fitting choice considering how many local designers found success there — Danene Lunn of Manuheali‘i, Kini Zamora and Ari South, to name a few.
“I think HCC really helped me (to understand) who I was as a designer and it really tested me as a business owner because I started everything backwards,” she says. “Normally, you go to school then you start your business. But in this case, I already started my business and then I went back to school.
“Everybody thinks you have to do things A to Z, but you don’t really have to. It’s OK to do things differently than what society is really telling you what to do,” she says.
“I feel like the Honolulu Community College, the program, was probably the best decision of my life — going back to school, getting my degree, learning everything from sketch to cut to sew to manufacturing and really taking that time in my life to really focus on my skills as a fashion designer. Because to me, that is something nobody will ever be able to take away from me — that I’m actually a fashion designer at the end of the day.”
It’s no wonder Akiona seeks to help HCC through her Lexbreezy Scholarship, which has contributed $50,000 over a five-year period and resulted in 20 annual scholarships for fashion and cosmetology students, with a preference given to Native Hawaiian students. Her inspiration for this scholarship could be attributed to her once being a recipient of a scholarship established by Manuheali‘i — an award that allowed her to focus on her studies full time while she was a student. Since then, it became her mission “to inspire the younger generation to embrace aloha wear and to inspire them to chase their dreams.”
Akiona was able to set up the Lexbreezy Scholarship during her time in Mana Up Hawai‘i’s seventh cohort. According to its website, Mana Up “hosts a six-month accelerator program geared for Hawaiʻi-based product companies with a focus on scaling markets globally through both retail and e-commerce channel.”
She recalls how Mana Up co-founders Meli James and Brittany Heyd were really about giving back and that they taught the cohort “they could sell, sell, sell, but we always have to give back.”
“I love Mana Up. I miss it,” she says. “It’s like going back to school. You’re continuing to learn and you’re around other entrepreneurs who go through the exact same things and the exact same problems, and I made so much relationships. I love my Mana Up family.”
Other ways Lexbreezy Hawai‘i and Akiona have helped the community include donating more than $100,000 to hundreds of families impacted by the Maui wildfires and raising money for Papahana Kuaola, which is dedicated to the preservation and conservation of the Hawaiian culture.
Akiona has another reason for why she is so motivated to help: “It’s that calling you get. It’s hard to explain. It’s just this calling you get in your heart and you just have to give back. And you know that that’s where God is taking you to step up and use your platform.”
She also wanted to create the scholarship to teach students that it’s OK to use surrounding resources to help achieve goals. It’s why Akiona visits local schools on career days and inspires keiki to chase their dreams.
“That’s so fulfilling to me as a business owner and that’s really what I actually enjoy doing,” she says. “I love speaking at schools and giving my time and those are ways that lead me back to my mission of inspiring the next generation.”
While Akiona may wear many hats running her own business, her favorite is being a mom. She and husband James have two sons, Lawai‘a and Kia‘iokekai.
“Every season will change for you. Right now, I am in a season of my ‘ohana,” she says.
Outside of work, her normal day consists of dropping off and picking up her boys from school; driving them to tae kwon do, soccer and tutoring lessons; and when they have time, riding dirt bikes with her family at the Kahuku track. But none of this would have been possible had she not started her company when she was 20.
And now, as Lexbreezy Hawai‘i’s nine-year anniversary approaches, Akiona is ecstatic about all that 2025 will bring. The business debuted its beauty line this past Christmas, which launched its Lexbreezy beauty kits, honi kits (a lip balm set) and lipstick collection. And, everything will come full circle when Lexbreezy returns to the Merrie Monarch Festival this March with its original print designs.
Akiona says that feeling of seeing someone wearing Lexbreezy will never get old.
“When you wear Lexbreezy, I promise somebody will compliment you. Anywhere, everywhere you go, you will always be complimented in your Lexbreezy because that’s just who we are as a brand — it’s about not making aloha wear, but being aloha. I think that’s something we do really, really well.”
