ALOHA

In the early summer of 2013, I would go to my grandmother's house every morning to help her make lei.  My grandmother comes from a long line of lei makers specifically making Ilima lei.  That year I helped her sew lei for a hula halau that entered the Merrie Monarch Hula Festival. We made a little over 40 strands of these beautiful ilima petals.  From seeing how much love, hard work, and patience that came from this art, my desire to handcraft grew.  

Being someone that was born and raised in Hawaii and always in the ocean, I loved bikinis so I thought about sewing my own. I purchased a sewing machine and taught myself using youtube, google search, or any book I could get my hands on.  After a while, I really loved it and wanted to learn more with the intention to one day make a business out of it.   I went on to attend UH Maui College Fashion Technology program where I was able to start with the basics of sewing, designing, and sketching.

I was also very much involved with paddling and noticed a lack of fun, printed activewear. This is where my idea of sewing activewear came to be.  In college, I was able to draft a leggings pattern and created a bunch for my team which was these bright mermaid scales.  We wore them to Kauai for the state championship race and they became a hit.  Luckily, I made a handful of extra leggings that I brought along which I was able to sell and build clientele.  Teams were also interested in buying our mermaid scale leggings off of my teammates and I.   [Ep-ik] Style was now known for those unforgettable mermaid scales worn by a team from Molokai.  After that day, I was able to connect and create leggings for teams not only from Hawaii but from California and Japan.

With 2-3 courses left of college, I was able to transfer back to Molokai where I gained an internship with Kealopiko as a production assistant and was later promoted to Production Manager. Using the skills I've learned I was able to apply them to a real-life business that operated on a larger scale. After 8 years of learning hands-on, I felt it was time to take my business to the next level and focus solely on expanding.

   Since then I’ve obtained my Associates in Applied Science from the University Of Maui Fashion Technology Program and a recipient of The Purple Mai’a FoundHER Cohort.

 We living the [Ep-ik] Life!