Meet Akkaraj Ak | Stylist, Designer, Food Critic

We had the good fortune of connecting with Akkaraj Ak and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Akkaraj, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
I actually started AkStylez by accident and necessity. I had just moved to LA from Texas and was quickly losing all the money I had saved because LA IS SO MUCH MORE EXPENSIVE THAN TEXAS to live in. I had 0 money but a LOT of clothes so I decided to go sell at this famous place that bought clothes called Round Two. I took all of my best pieces and waited in line for them to tell me “nothing you have will sell here, it’s just not our style.” I was shocked because all of my friends had been telling me how cool my stuff was for literal years. I tried another store and they said the same and another and another until one guy finally told me, “You should just try Depop or Ebay”. I went home and made a Depop account and started posting and it kinda blew up overnight and my sales started increasing every day until I was a Top Seller and i’m kinda just still moving off that momentum.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I am so excited that I am currently in the part of my clothing selling career that I am actually moving away from reselling and thrifting so I can focus on my own designs and collections. I have 100000 ideas a day and have been limiting myself by “just trying to make money”. I am now at a point where I spend a lot of time designing my own pieces of clothing and items and will start releasing all of them very soon. It took a lot of work to get to this point and I am still in trial and error mode but I love every part of it. My focus is to create pieces that last that will be looked at 100s of years from now and appreciated.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
I currently live in Los Angeles and there is SO much to do here. When my friends come from out of town I take them to go eat any of the amazing restaurants out here, if we have time we go to somewhere like Disneyland or a huge amusement park. Thrifting is a MUST in LA, you can find so much dope stuff. It also just depends on the exact day my friends come out because every day there is something new going on here.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I would like to dedicate my shoutout to every single person that has ever bought clothes from me. People have the choice to shop with me or anybody else in the world so the ones that choose me mean so much to me and I literally couldn’t be here without them.

Website: www.akstylezshop.com

Instagram: www.instagram.com/akstylez

Other: www.tiktok.com/akstylezshop