Follow signs for Haku Maui and you'll walk down a fern-lined pathway in Makawao. It feels like you’re entering a secret hideaway but at the end, there are smiling faces — and lots of lei.
“Aloha, welcome, come inside!”
Owner Britney Alejo-Fishell opened the shop almost 10 years ago. She has made it her mission not only to sell lei but to educate and perpetuate their cultural importance.
“I originally started selling lei from our garage, and we realized that there was a huge gap between lei and the people around us,” she explained.
A decade ago, Alejo-Fishell said the options to buy lei were limited.
“A lot of people weren't really talking about the connection between lei and Hawaiian culture and what that means and what that looks like,” she said. “Or even about the flowers themselves, growing them locally here, and supporting our local farmers. Our goal became to perpetuate lei in Hawaiian culture.”
It all started with ‘ohana.
“I owe all of this to my grandma, Mary Anne Soares. And she really instilled all of this in me to share this 'ike about the land, about flowers and plants, and about lei as well,” said Alejo-Fishell.
“That's my mom in there, Sheryl [Fishell]. She runs our lei shop,” said Alejo-Fishell. “My cousins work here, my aunty, my uncle, my best friend, my other half — everybody here is a huge support system, as well as our community.”
When it was time to move her business out of the garage, Alejo-Fishell said the location was a no-brainer, but it took a leap of faith.
“There was no place I'd rather be than in my hometown, Makawao. I looked and looked, and finally we came across this building that we're sitting in right now, and it was three times my budget, but it was month-to-month, and I just really saw a huge moment for us and I decided, if I take it and I fail, at least I tried.”
It has grown into a flourishing business that includes both selling lei and offering lei-making workshops.
“We looked into workshops [when we first opened] and what people were teaching, and it was nothing more than ‘Meet at 2 p.m. in the lobby’ with purple orchids that aren't from Hawai’i and sharing little to no knowledge of Hawaiian culture,” she said. “And to us, we were like, ‘Oh, no, no, no, this cannot be.’ So we just sort of went for it.”
She had a vision for the space.
“We wanted this place to feel like you're coming into our home to make lei with us, just as we're taught when we're growing up. She would show her love through lei, my grandma.”
Her grandmother’s house was always fragrant with flowers.
“When I was small, I didn't enjoy it [lei making] as much. It's a lot of hard work. A lot of people see the end result, and they picture this beautiful process," said Alejo-Fishell. "But when you're really working the land and supporting what's going on around you, and taking care of that, it comes with this kuleana. So you cannot have lei without acknowledging the elements around us — taking care of 'āina, water, all of these things that help this ecosystem work, and that is the depth of it that you carry.”
All the blooms and foliage she uses are locally grown.
“My relationship with a farmer is so important to me,” she explained. “I want to see them every week. I want to talk to them. I want to hear how they're doing and how we can help them as well.”
There are challenges, like the seasonality of certain flowers — and the weather.
“We just recently had these Kona lows, and as you can imagine, our farmers took a huge hit, and now everyone's doing their best to sort of kind of just get back up from that. And here we are in May, right?” said Alejo-Fishell. “And so we just kind of got to work together.”
She hopes to amplify the floral industry across the state, as she supports growers on Maui as well as O'ahu and Hawai'i Island.
“When we talk about agriculture, a lot of people talk about ... food farming, and we kind of get left behind in the flower farming world,” she said.
“Lei, I feel, is the biggest I've ever seen it, now as an industry,” she added. “It's so different than when we first started Haku Maui. It has grown so much…. There's this opportunity here to grow this industry here in Hawai’i.”
But despite the growing demands, for Alejo-Fishell, every flower has meaning and each lei tells a story.
“A lot of people come in here and they're looking for guidance for lei,” she said. “They're celebrating something that's very special or important, or honoring somebody who is here, or who has passed, and we can share with them what the meaning of these lei are and help them.”
Upcountry Maui resident Emily Campbell visited Haku Maui for the first time over Mother’s Day weekend.
“It's so stinking cute,” she said. “It's just like a dream, 100%.”
Lindsay Rodrigues is the manager of Holoholo Surf, located next door.
“People come from all over to support Holoholo Surf and Haku Maui,” she said. “They seek us out to buy lei, to buy accessories, to buy mu’umu’u, and to just experience the Makawao Town vibe.”
With May Day, Mother’s Day and graduations, this is Alejo-Fishell's busiest season.
“A lot of people don't see this, but we're working from 4 a.m. to sometimes midnight just to make it happen. So by the time we see you at the end of the week — ho, we are beat.”
For Alejo-Fishell, it's all about connection.
“To me, it's very important that if we're talking about something as important as lei in Hawaiian culture, that it be grown here in Hawaiʻi from this soil, made with these hands, from this land, in order to share this aloha with the next person,” she said.
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