Seiji‘s interest in hair started early, when he was 10 years old. He had a particular salon near his house in Nagoya, Japan. What made the place special was the service this couple provided and how hard they worked. They were both extremely polite and very skilled, but had fun while working, and were genuinely interested in the customer sitting in front of them.
He carefully watched how they cut hair while he waited for his turn, and practiced cutting his parents’ and friends’ hair for fun. As he grew older, he knew he wanted to be a hairstylist. While he was in high school, he obtained his hairstylist license through correspondent school. By that time, he was working full-time at the couple’s salon. It was the nineties, and back then in Japan, a lot of hairstylists were getting attention in the press, being treated like celebrities in Tokyo. There was glamour to the profession and he was very interested in being part of it.
After working in Nagoya, he moved to Tokyo in 1996, determined to start his next chapter. He took the night bus from Nagoya to Tokyo several times after work to look for a job and place to live. Luckily, he had some experience, so he landed a job at a top salon in Tokyo relatively quickly. But he found that everyone was doing the same thing, it wasn’t creative and he could see he wouldn’t last very long at his first salon job in Tokyo. In fact, he lasted only two weeks. He found what turned out to be his true calling quickly thereafter. He looked at all the hair credits listed in magazines–which was no small feat since there was no internet back then.
He discovered Katsuma Yokoyama, a famous hairstylist who worked for many designers during Paris Fashion Week and created the iconic looks of many pop singers, like Namie Amuro, in the nineties. He found his agency and contacted him. He gave him a test and a trial for several weeks–which he passed. He found his creative outlet once he became his assistant, helping artists define their look and image.
His ambitions grew and he was focused on how he could grow internationally. He had seen Oribe’s credits on all the photos of supermodels in major fashion magazines in the nineties. He ran an insanely spectacular salon inside Elizabeth Arden on Fifth Avenue in New York. When Oribe came to Japan for a hair show, he was young and couldn’t afford to buy a ticket to attend. But he knew he was THE person to work for, so he decided to move to the Big Apple to meet Oribe in 1998. It took him a month of negotiating with Oribe, and he spoke very little English then, but he eventually nabbed an interview and a try out. It didn’t even occur to him that he should have looked elsewhere; it was Oribe or bust.
He obtained a working visa in six months after landing in the U.S. He worked at the Oribe salon for five years, first as an assistant, then as a hairstylist. At the same time, he started to freelance and worked on test shoots for small magazines in between salon work.
In 2005 he found out from a friend that a legend in hair styling, Julien dY’s, was looking for an assistant in New York. He immediately got an interview and became his assistant for three years before starting his freelance career.
His own career started when photographer Albert Watson started to book him for editorial work in magazines like Vogue and Interview.
He’s now the founder and creative director of Trim New York.
He is represented by Forwards Artists and you can find his portfolio HERE
