Leaving with my heart full of so much gratitude for being able to embark on this journey to mother India. A place of deep spirituality to open my heart more and be inspired by the amazing women that work day by day with their hands to create art and connect with there land.

We came to India, to find the source of organic Cotton, which is the root of all of our creations here at Akoia. We wanted to build that connection with it. To understand the growth process, the harvest process and how it is transformed into yarn. Cotton is an amazing plant that is native to India, it has culturally very appreciated, and holds a special tradition in the communities of South India. We wanted to see for our selves, how the cotton is grown, how many women that takes, how much land space, how much water space, what kind of connection Indian locals have with there cotton, how does cotton have a role in there culture and how does organic cotton work in India. 

This Exploration deepened my connection with the Akoia, and my appreciation for the hand work of growing cotton that goes into each Akoia piece it really is a special journey from how it gets from the farm as a baby crop then spinning into cotton yarn, to then our hand made crochet clothing. 

This is such a distinctive opportunity for people who work with cotton ( 80% of the fashion world)  to make that connection with the source of there clothing, to really understand what you are working with on every aspect, and to see, and feel every transparent process. from Seedling to garment. This is what the Akoia journey is about, going back to the roots and displaying that journey for every one to understand. 

 Much Love, 

Reo

All photos by www.reopfilm.com 

Muses @jijihatesyou @angelacsari 

The BTS of the Humba campaign, Shot down the West Coast of  Sumba Island

Featuring the small Akoia team, Inka Williams, My Mum, Gina Palmer & my self Reo Palmer.

 6 days spent, between the white sandy long beaches and discovering water oasis's where we shot the collection. We shared so many laughs, we taught kids English, and went on big adventures. See a few captures of our daily life in Sumba.

The beaches of the island were filled with buffalos. During the morning sun the farmer brings his dozen of buffalos to the ocean edge, to wash them, walk them down the river to feed and bathe.  It is refreshing to see farmers so connected to their animals. 

Inka found a mamma crab washed up on shore. So much raw marine life by the sea on this island. 

The endless white sand & coconut tree beaches.

These little boys would see us from miles away on the beach and ask us if we wanted to buy a fresh coconut for 10,000 which is only 1$. They would find the highest coconut tree and climb coco trees as tall as 20 mtrs , then coming down with a bunch of fresh coconuts. So impressed with these local kids, how talented!

Education is very limited in Sumba, so we got the chance to teach the little kids English. These kids taught us how remote life is in these villages. They would walk miles every early morning to collect water for their homes. 

We asked the kids, what would you like as presents from us when we return next year?  They said "we would just love to learn from you again". It really goes to show, these kids really value education rather then material things. 

This is one of the Traditional villages. The houses are designed like this, and they are famous to Sumba. The theory is, they have 3 layers of living, one for animal at the bottom, one for human in the middle and one for the spirit at the top.

At these villages, women would spend their days weaving natural yarns into their traditional wear. Using natural dyes and natural materials. Weaving ikat is a tradition that has been passed down from generations.  We learnt a lot from these empowering women. 

We found an oasis, Sumba has very dry land. While our adventure through the tropical desert like land, we came across this. 

The sunrise wake up picking seaweed  to then cook for our lunch. They mums of the villages taught us how to pick the correct seaweed and how to turn it into the yummiest meal.

This was Pak Musa, he was the head of the village and owned a few bamboo bungalows on the beach where we stayed. What a legend!

With Sumba so close to our hearts, and creating such deep connections to the people, we teamed up with the Sumba foundation, to donate proceeds from this collection directly to support Families in Sumba with health, education and water.

Thank you so much, Sumba, for your beauty, and hospitably. 

Thank you to all the people involved in the  processes of this collection. 

Love, 

Reo & Inka, and Gina.

I really want all of you to meet my best friend, Frances. 

Frances, Inka and I started akoia all together actually. Franny was their to design the first ever collection of Akoia. She loved being the designer while me and Inka mostly took care of photo stuff. Fran was working so hard for Akoia and had many big visions for us. She is a beach girl at heart, a wild surfer, and part time model, and was the perfect designer. 

Because we were all so young, trying to manage high school and Akoia. She eventually wanted to go her separate ways after to focus on high school and her own studies. She will still always be apart of Akoia to me, we all birthed it together, but i am happy to see her growing in her ways and finding her own path following her dreams. 

These photos were taken on a day out in Bali, buying fruits, swimming in my pool and posing at the front of my house. I admire her beauty, A mix of Indonesian and Canadian. 21 years of age and glowing! She has been my best friend since we were 8. 

Enjoy these photos i took of her recently in the Hydra collection. 

Wearing the Esme Dress in Coconut matched with the Delphine bag.

The Lilou pants and Monte bikini in Wild Rose 

 & The Arete Onepiece in Coconut.

@FrannyElliott 

Alll photos by www.reopfilm.com 

Shot on portra 160 

Hydra collection shot at Rockaway Beach NYC

A getaway from NYC chaos, to Rockaway beach featuring the Hydra Collection and my 3 beautiful girl friends from NY. They embrace they're beauty so much; their hairs, they'e raw natural self. Make up free, individual styles and all hands on creatives!
I feel that living in NYC with such a wide range of individuals, the best way to strive is to be YOURSELF. and staying true to you! meaning expressing the real you, the hairy you, the beautiful tattoos, the free spirit.
There have no time to get caught up in trying to be other people in this big city. so embrace what you have, and make it individual. 

So happy i got to share my Akoia pieces with these girls, and they get to spread the hydra collection to the streets of New York, Which has been a dream of mine, to get this small little label to a magical big city.

Also a special thank you too Natalie, for including her Honeymoon Beads, she is crafting her self from home. ~  @honeymoon.nyc ~ 

All images by https://www.natalielin.co/

Paris with Marg and Emma. 

Paris born and raised, girls with a love for fashion, Marguerite and Emma take us around Paris. Long days in the sun spent at Le Jardin Du Luxembourg, and the streets of Paris.

The girls looked so beautiful in the Hydra Collection, collaborating with their own Parisian fashion style. I was so thankful to see, the crochet beach ware we make, in the beautiful city of Paris.

~ Dreaming about Summer days, and Eclair's ~

MEET MARIJA .

Our London Muse ~ Shot in her home in East London. Featuring the Hydra collection. 

"The Arete one piece is perfect for me, i can wear it in London with my baby blu jeans. The fit complements my body and i love low back cut."

"The Clio bikini, is just to cute, the tie on the sides with the very small Brazilian cut is my dream bikini. And this colour way compliments my skin so nicely." 

Marija has been in fashion for 4 years, she loves street fashion and 90's style vintage. She always supports only independent designers, small labels and vintage. She had been following Akoia for a while and loved us for our 90's style bikinis and our fashion ethos. She says "Its so lovely to have a connection to the source of what you are buying, now i have met the Akoia team, i will always support them" 

Marija's art inspiration is from her studies of so many books, you can only see a few of her collection in these images. They are big coffee table books from all over the world, all random bits of global art. Her fascination for world classical art is so inspiring, she studies so much important information and art with history and therefor has so much knowledge to share. 

She has such a cozy, style and she doesn't have to take it to seriously, her grunge look and her hair gives her such a style.  She is a tall beautiful model from Lithuania, with so much sass. 

She is currently freelancing her graphic design work which is so cool! she is to talented ~ You can preview her work here!

https://www.marijamarc.com/

It was such a pleasure to shoot Marija, Hear her stories and chat about fashion, style and creativity.

Here, In a few of these images i am using my friend Sarah Ellens Polaroid camera which was cool to try out and produce some different content. All images by www.reopfilm.com

@marijamarc

I met Olivia 1 year ago in London, and i knew from the start we should plan a shoot together, and make it so dreamy! She has such a vibe and so much natural beauty, i was so excited to see what we could create!

So the start of this year, i planned to shoot Olivia in Spain for the launch of the next collection, to create a story of our experience, to capture the swimwear so beautiful on her.

As soon as we saw each other, we had set our intentions for this trip. We both were going through a heart break and both just had to surrender to trusting the universe. We chatted and filled each other in about life, and embraced we where both going through a heart break! and wanted to use this trip as a very healing time as well. 

We had so much time to read and write, which made the trip so special, we were so sync with our emotions. Each day we had so much to write about and emotionally purge. 

I think Olivia is such a strong women, and she i beautiful inside out. She had not been to the ocean a whole year, straight away she felt at home and one with the earth. 

She taught me about sangria (spanish fruity mulled wine) , which i had no idea about! We had drinks by the sea, and we were probably a little tipsy in a few of these images. 

It was such a pleasure to shoot Olivia, she opened up to me, and it made it so easy for us to be comfortable to shoot, we embraced her beauty and each Akoia pieces suited her so much. Everything. She also embraced the pieces, it made her feel so confident she was not use to wearing such small bikinis.  

Here are a few of my most loved images from the shoot. She is a mix of Australia and Nigeria, how beautiful?

We spoilt ourselves on the 2nd day, and went to the most beautiful restaurant looking over the ocean. and shared a fresh caught squid. 

It was the most beautiful restaurant looking over the bay. At Cala Deia beach. 

Spain, we enjoyed your endless delicious paella, raw beaches, and incredible sunset light and Sangria! Thank you for having us. 

I had a beautiful experience in Olivia and Emz energy. I learnt alot from much older girls, like they were my sisters. 

I am so grateful for girl time, and for your each others support. 

Love, Reo

All images by www.reopfilm.com

This is Mallorca, One of the most purest places to be. 

Hire a car with your best girl friends, and do the whole island. 

This is was the first time, i got to reunite with Inka, Sarah and Nadia after months! It was perfect because 

 Thank you, Sarah Ellen Inka Williams, Angela Sullivan, Nadia Artha and Pier for the most magical trip.

All photos taken by, www.reopfilm.com

This is how we traveled around, on this motor bike we named "Phill", that cost 8 euros a day. It reminded me of home jumping on the bike, driving around so freely. on the broken roads of the island. I had my shoes tied to the back and my camera bag tied to the front, and off we went hunting locations and shooting.

This was the secret beach, that i cant say because i promised to keep it to the locals. It was the most bluest water i have ever seen. It was big colour pebble flooring and endless fishes. We spent all day here, swimming, lying in the sun, smoking some weed and shooting. 

The local people of Greece are so sweet, they are very protective over the oceans and marine life. They are all still very traditional people, and reserve there culture. obviously the more tourist islands people pick up the tourist mannerism, but the quite islands the locals are just fishing, ridding there donkeys in there gardens. This guy gave us a free donut! 

One of my most loved part, was the big hills with traditional greek churches spread out among the hills, all made in only dark blu and white colouring. The greek belief this was to keep them cool during the summer months. These churches made the hills so surreal. 

Travel tips for Greece, 

- I would recommend to fly into Athens and take the ferry to Hydra, then to Ios, and then defiantly check out Mykonos ( though stay away from the party side)  and try get your motorbike license prior to going, to rent a motor bike and properly explore. 

- Make sure you try the Squid salads, from a local Resto, Though make sure you know it was fresh, and the locals caught it themselves.

- Try do it as Eco as possible, try not to buy big plastic water bottles, be conscious with your plastic bag consumption too! Greece is not that advanced in that sense and doesn't offer much alternatives. 

-Remember to pack your Akoiaswim!

-Try and see at least 1 historic sight, either in Athens you can see a few, or Mykonos! They are so beautiful and you can feel the ancient energy.

Working with Bella was a dream, 3 days of pure enjoyment. 

she was everything i hoped, and better. It did not even feel like we where on a photoshoot job! We were just in the moment getting amazing content.

She was a beach girl at heart. She observed the beauty around here, and it showed through in the photograph. Modeling comes so easy to her, but that is usually the case when you are full of natural beauty! She loves the ocean, and traveling so she was always in her element and thats how its easy to photograph. 

Thank you Bella, Thank you Greece and thanks to the whole Akoia team for putting this together. 

All images by www.reopfilm.com