MANILA, Philippines—If high-society women have stopped going to Hong Kong or Singapore every 6-8 weeks for their regular haircuts, it’s all thanks to Chiyo Tagami.

Tagami is the Japanese and now Makati transplant trusted by the likes of Doris Magsaysay Ho, Menchu Lopez, Veana Fores to cut their hair. She has also worked on Imee Marcos, Vivian Yuchengco, Inno Sotto, Jojie Lloren, Patrick Rosas, Ariel Lozada and actress Maricel Soriano.

She’s become known, though, as the stylist responsible for actress Gretchen Barretto’s sleek bob.

Some of these clients have been so possessive of Tagami’s services that a few have been known to invoke the Fifth when questioned about her identity, such that her name is known only in select circles.

A month ago, Tagami opened her own salon in Makati (6/F Republic Glass Bldg., Salcedo corner Aguirre Sts., Legaspi Village; tel. 8120943) bankrolled by a local partner.

Sei salon is a quiet little joint she mans with two Filipina assistants and another young haircutter, Ryoko Yasuda, who moved here from Tokyo shortly before the shop opened. Sei’s specialty is hair, so don’t expect to get a mani-pedi here.

18-year veteran

Tagami came to the Philippines for the first time in September 2005. She had been working in a French-Japanese salon in Osaka for 10 years, and had also worked in Tokyo.

The 18-year hair veteran didn’t know much of the country she was traveling to. In fact, she had already made plans to move to Kuala Lumpur and had bought a plane ticket. A compatriot who owned a salon in Makati, however, convinced her to give the Philippines a try.

“After three weeks, I wanted to stay,” she recalls with a wistful smile.

Soon, she was invited to judge local hair shows, which led to her meeting with Rosas, Barretto’s longtime makeup artist and Sotto’s frequent collaborator.

“Patrick is my angel talaga,” she says of Rosas, who would later invite her to Sotto’s 2006 gala show. “I thought I was just going to watch,” she adds, laughing. “And then Patrick said, ‘Hoy, bakla!’ you help!”

It was through interactions with Rosas and his crew—and watching a lot of local TV—that she’s now able to punctuate her sentences with Filipino words, much of them street slang and gay lingo.

At the Makati salon where she first worked, 99 percent of the clients were Japanese expats. But word soon got around in the society grapevine that the salon began getting upper-crust ladies.

Many of them remained loyal to Tagami even after she left the salon in July 2007, having reached her breaking point from the strains of living in Manila. Unsure of what to do next, she traveled to Bangkok but she didn’t feel at home. She flew back to the Philippines, where she had a working visa, and continued to cut the hair of her regular clients, right in their own homes.

“If they went to Hong Kong or Singapore to have a haircut, I thought P1,500 (her rate for women’s haircut) was nothing to them,” she says. “I noticed Filipinas are fashionistas. You have great fashion designers, you like fashion, you make even a P50 T-shirt look good. What you don’t have is good haircut.”

Basic knowledge

Tagami has observed that many local hairdressers know how to “copy” a hairstyle, but lack the basic knowledge of haircutting. She says this without any air of disdain or haughtiness. “I’m sorry!” she says emphatically. “But that’s what I have seen.”

In fact, it takes her up to an hour to fix the near-disastrous haircut of many a first-time client, a session that always begins with an indulgent 15-minute “Japanese shampoo.”

She takes quick but precise snips at every section of hair “because in my mind I already have a picture of what I want to do.” Her hope is to be able to teach proper cutting techniques here, something that she feels is sorely lacking.

“Before, people didn’t think this is a [prestigious] job, so they didn’t study it,” she says.

“The difference between a Japanese and Filipino client is that the Japanese knows what she wants and tells you,” she says. “The Filipino always says, ‘It’s up to you,’ and I’m afraid of that because in Japan, they can take you to court [for a bad haircut]!”

She applies a three-step method to establish rapport and trust with a client. For a first visit, Tagami often maintains the hair length “but with something different.” Then she advises the client to come back in two months. If the client is satisfied enough to return, it means a “more fashionable” cut on the second visit. “On the third visit, I do whatever I want.”

“Filipinas also like to copy haircuts from magazines,” she adds. “That’s your dilemma. But it has to suit your face shape and your lifestyle. I also observed while going around in salons here, you don’t trust your hairdresser,” she notes, describing how Filipinas on the cutting chair nervously tug at their hair the moment their stylist turns his or her back.

Filipinos are still quite conservative with their hair, Tagami observes, much like “the Japanese in the ’80s.” While she sometimes likes to create edgier cuts, like what she does on the young designer Gian Romano, she also admits to not being a fan of fantasy styles in hair shows.

“It’s not real!” she says.