You walk into a room with 30 people who have been waiting for you. What do you do for them?

My answer is that I would first style all of them, and teach them all I know about style!

This question will usually lead you to a person’s dreams, or lifework if they’re somewhere down a career that they love.

Some said they would give those 30 people a massage. Some would refinance all their mortgages. Others entertained them.

What did you do for those 30 people?

Raiman Au
Me. I get to be the main character. After all, this is my blog! You can find more about my on the About Me page.

Mami Asakawa （浅川真愛）
The love of my life and half the reason that I came to Japan. She is pursuing her dream to become a singer in Japan, and is currently working as a singer in a pub in Kannai, Yokohama.

Sako Mizuno （水野左孝）
A manager at the Japan branch of the Roche healthcare group. I met him first in California, when he was working there for Roche during a two year period. We actually met at Mami’s restaurant, Shun, where he was a regular customer. Upon coming to Japan, he let Mami and I stay at his place until we could get settled and find a place of our own. And for that, I’m greatly indebted to him. We’ve had many a deep conversation about many different topics, and one of them was styling. Thanks to him, I was finally able to get my first experience styling someone from scratch. He also was the first to bring up the idea for me to base my styling on Uniqlo clothing. I’ve had a wonderful introduction to Japan because of him.

Photos Sako-san styled by me: http://tinyurl.com/dlmwzk

Nelson Babin-Coy
My friend and classmate from UC Berkeley, he’s a fantastically driven guy who came to Japan about two years before I did. He works currently as Thane Camus’s manager, but his dreams lie in the music industry. He’s the band leader of Nothing Ever Lasts, an indie band on the Japanese music scene. With the internet quickly becoming a powerful form of promotion, he’s looking to bypass the established recording companies and create his own. My sincere thanks to him for warmly introducing me to Japan, his band, his friends, Sugimoto-san, and Thane Camus. I am also now the official stylist for his band, which I haven’t styled yet, but it will soon!

Koutoku Sato （佐藤公徳）
The top hairstylist at a salon in Aoyama called Hair Dimension 4. He’s currently well-known because he started sharing on Mixi (a Japanese social networking site) all the secret tricks of the trade that hairstylists use to work with people’s hair. He started this because as a hairstylist, he felt that however beautiful a hairstyle might be, it couldn’t truly be considered a good style if the customer had to take hours on their own or revisit the hair salon in order to recreate it. He’s published a book on the same topic! I met him thanks to an introduction from Erina. And of course, he’s a great hairstylist. Go to him if you need a haircut! I’ll introduce you.

You can find him on his website here: http://koutoku4.com
Here is his book: http://tinyurl.com/cn9zyv
And his public blog:  http://ameblo.jp/hairdimension/

Takuma Kano （鹿野巧真）
A freelance clothing stylist. Koutoku introduced me to him so that I could learn more about the stylist industry and how to get started in it, and I did! A quiet, but really nice guy. His dream is to work with women’s clothing in the fashion industry. But in Japan, the only male stylists that can work with women’s’ fashion are gay men, because it is accepted that only they can understand women as well as women themselves do.

A portfolio of his works: http://fotologue.jp/takuma-kano/
His personal blog:  http://oncecreate.exblog.jp/

Seiko Sugimoto （杉本誠子）
Thane Camus’s stylist (although she styles many others as well). I met her through Nelson’s introduction to help me get started in the stylist industry! A very kind and caring person, she’s offered me lots of advice about getting starting as a stylist. She also helped ask around to see if other stylists would be interested in having me as an assistant. I wasn’t been able to take on her offer, though, because I needed a visa and an income to support myself. Also thanks to her and Nelson I was able to see what happens behind-the-scenes at Nippon Television. She’s also offered to let me follow her around at different events as well, should I desire.

Thane Camus （セイン・カミュ）
A  television personality in Japan （タレント）. He was born and raised in New York, but has lived in Japan for about 30 years. He is widely known as a good looking foreigner who is smart and can speak Japanese fluently. I met him when I had the opportunity to follow Sugimoto-san and Nelson on one of their work assignments at Nippon Television.