Today we’d like to introduce you to Kiyotaka Tsutsumi.
Hi Kiyotaka, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My parents divorced when I was very young, so I don’t remember anything about my real father and don’t even know what he looked like. My mother then tried her best to raise us three children on her own. Then, when I was in elementary school, my mother remarried, but she had constant fights with him about us, and they separated when I was in high school. During the time of separation, my mother had to feed the three of us on her own earnings, so I remember that I worked hard at part-time jobs to try to help her. When I graduated from high school at the age of 18, I started working at a small barbershop as a live-in employee, hoping to make my mother’s life a little easier. During that time, I was exposed to the depth of haircuts and decided that I wanted to learn more about hair than just men’s short hair, so I decided to move to a hair salon that was well-known at the time in the most central area of Tokyo.
After many interviews, I was chosen out of hundreds of applicants to work at the salon. It was a really busy hair salon that was visited by many celebrities. During the 10 years I worked there, I had the opportunity to work with many celebrities. I also had the opportunity to participate in many hair contests, magazines, and hair shows. However, the idea of learning even more began to grow inside me again, and I decided that I wanted to compete as a hairstylist in New York City, where there are so many different races and cultures. At the age of 30, I finally left Tokyo and moved to New York. When I arrived in New York, I started from scratch and initially worked at a hair salon in Manhattan. After a few years, I had gotten used to New York and wanted to take on a new challenge. At that time, a meeting introduced me to a members-only hotel on Wall Street, which was said to be the second oldest hotel in the United States. I was offered the opportunity to revive an unused barbershop in the hotel that had long since closed. I saw this as a unique opportunity, so I gathered my colleagues and together we reopened it. It was a speakeasy-style barbershop that you had to go through the men’s bathroom to get in. It was a very chic and antique place with a great atmosphere that was used in many movies and dramas.
However, after a few years of good management, the hotel was bought by another owner who decided to renovate it, and we were forced out. However, we did not want to end up like this, and we wanted to have our own salon where we would not be disturbed by anyone. We decided to have our own salon in the East Village of Manhattan. And now the salon is three and a half years old, we have overcome the wave of coronas, and now we have many customers coming not only from New York but also from all over the United States. We are still in the middle of our journey, but we will continue to do our best every day without forgetting the many people who support us.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
It was not a smooth road. One particular difficulty was when I had to make a big change in something. For example, at the barbershop where I worked for the first time after graduating from high school and leaving my parents, I went to beauty school during the day, went straight to the salon to work after school, and practiced after work until midnight. It was a completely different lifestyle than when I was in high school. I had to work at the salon even on days off from school, so I think I had very few days off during the two years I was there. I had to live in the salon’s dormitory, so I had to live with my senior in one room, which was very difficult because I had to take care of myself and senior and had no privacy. Furthermore, the salary was surprisingly low even though I worked every day, and it was really hard. I also had a really hard time when I decided to leave Tokyo and work in New York. I was told negatively by many people that I should stop, and of course there was the financial uncertainty and mental stress. I had been working at a well-known salon in Tokyo for 10 years, so I had my own clientele and a certain amount of stability, but I was afraid to abandon that. And since I didn’t speak any English, I had to start by learning English like a child would learn. Now I have good memories of all of them because my decision to go to New York allowed me to have many new experiences.
And the last hardest thing I had to do was to open my current salon with my colleagues. Creating everything by ourselves from scratch was a lot of fun, but I think it was more of a struggle. In opening the salon, I had daily fights with my colleagues, and sometimes I lost faith in people because of financial troubles. About half a year after we opened, there was a pandemic, and at that time I really felt like I was going to be sick my heart. Every day was a real challenge, and I often talk with my colleagues now about how I have been able to continue for the past three and a half years. However, I know that I will still have a lot of hardships in the future, but from my past experience, I know that it will be a good memory when it is all over, so I will enjoy it even though it will be a hardship. I think that life is surely more enjoyable than an easy, flat life, a life with peaks and valleys that is like a roller coaster with some hardships but also with occasional good things.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I am a hairstylist. I mainly focus on salon work. Alongside this, I also shoot for magazines and do hair and makeup for events. When I was working in Tokyo, I often participated in hair contests and won several awards. One thing that sets me apart from other hairstylists is the variety of experiences I have. I have been in barbershops and beauty hair salons, in trendy cities like Tokyo and New York, and in numerous photo shoots and hair contests. So I can really do everything from barber cuts, up-dos required for weddings, balayage and highlight colors that are popular in the US, straightening hair called Japanese straight perm, curtain bang cuts that are popular in New York right now, shag cuts, and even wolf cuts and princess cuts. A wide range of hair styles can be done. In the U.S., there is often a division of labor, with one person doing the cutting and one person doing the coloring. But I can do most of the techniques by myself. And thanks to those experiences, I can analyze not only the customer’s hair but also everything from clothes to makeup in total, and create a custom-made hairstyle that suits each and every one of them. I can say that my strength lies in my ability to approach different clients regarding their various concerns.
The crisis has affected us all in different ways. How has it affected you and any important lessons or epiphanies you can share with us?
What I realized in Cover-19 is that no one knows when the last day of life will come, so I learned that if I don’t live each day challenging myself to do something, I will definitely regret it when I die. Therefore, it is important to always give it your all, whether playing or working.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://meynewyork.com
- Instagram: kiyo_meynewyork
Image Credits
1-2 Photographer: Hayato Sakurai Model: Imena de Barros Blume Stylist: Rikiya Ogura MUA: Fuka Emma Ando / Miku Mizuguchi Hair: Kiyotaka Tsutsumi 3-4 Photographer: Lina Takeuchi Model: Janina Tirronen / Kokiekola MUA: Fuka Emma Ando / Miku Mizuguchi Hair: Hiro Taniguchi / Kiyotaka Tsutsumi 5-6 Photographer: Tai Hirayama Model: Naoki Sumiya MUA: Fuka Emma Ando Hair: Kiyotaka Tsutsumi 7 Photographer: Lina Takeuchi Model: Meisha Brooks Stylist: Rikiya Ogura MUA: Shoko Sawatari Hair: Kiyotaka Tsutsumi
