The thing about competitive dance that kept Akaila Johnson invested in such physical and mentor rigor from age 7 through high school can be boiled down to a single word: rhinestones.
“My life was absolutely consumed by dance. It was there that I spent all my time and made my first friends,” Johnson says. “Dance also heavily influenced my love for anything that sparkles and shines. I was always asking for the costume that had the most rhinestones—and if more could be added, I would be even happier.”
As an adult, Johnson chose a career path other than dance, yet she held on to that love of all things sparkly. She studied fashion merchandising in college and had her first real job at J. Crew during one of its most significant periods, but later studied gemology and jewelry design at GIA. In 2020, having created her first jewelry pieces for private clients, Johnson debuted her namesake brand, Akaila Reid.
“I’ve always wanted to be the most sparkly girl in the room…and I have yet to meet a shade of pink that I didn’t instantly fall in love with,” the designer says. “But I never thought I’d be part of the jewelry industry. My life has been changed incredibly because I was introduced to the possibility that I could do this.”
Johnson says the support of her mother, maternal grandmother, and friends helped make her jewelry line possible. They trusted her creative vision—and her switch from pink dancewear and rhinestones to diamonds and gemstones.
Her mother and grandmother are the strongest women she’s known, says Johnson. Her mom was a single parent in Southern California, working diligently to support Johnson and her brother. Much of their early years was spent in the care of their grandmother. “I credit her for instilling in us a deep love and appreciation for the arts, theater, ballet, museums, travel, and culture,” Johnson says.
While attending the Academy of Art University in San Francisco (where she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in 2014), Johnson worked as a sales associate at J. Crew. There, she learned the practical things associated with her job—managing time, working with clients, finding her personal style—and also got to watch the “magical years,” as Johnson calls it, of J. Crew’s design director Jenna Lyons, whose work and personal style heavily influenced the company’s image.
Fashion will always fascinate Johnson, but she says it wasn’t the ideal fit. After moving to New York post-college, she toured the GIA campus and decided to enroll. “I spent the next year and a half completing their graduate gemology course as well as both their hand rendering and computer-aided design courses,” Johnson says. “One of the best things about my time at GIA was the people I met from all over the world who all had vastly different experiences within the industry.… I hope that we will be a new generation who pushes boundaries while still holding true and beautiful techniques and traditions of making jewelry.”
Johnson says she developed her jewelry philosophy—that jewelry is art you could and should wear daily—from what she learned and who she met at GIA. She describes her work as “unapologetically feminine,” classic and occasionally whimsical.
“My first love in jewelry will always be the stones. Happening upon an especially spectacular stone, whether due to its cut, color, or rarity, will forever set my heart aflutter,” Johnson says. “Being grateful for the beauty Mother Nature is able to create on her own will never be lost on me.
“Whether it’s the awe and adoration of a phenomenal stone or the warmth of knowing a piece has been passed down through a family, I just really hope that jewelry makes people feel something,” she says. “Jewelry is one of the only art forms that can be worn by a person through every moment of their lives. And how special is that?”
Top: Akaila Johnson studied dance and fashion but found her calling in jewelry after taking a GIA class. She debuted her own jewelry brand in 2020. (Photos courtesy of Akaila Reid)
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