Death of a Hairdresser
Does New York lose much when a hairdresser dies?
Apparently so, if the crowd at Miwa/Alex last Saturday night is any measure. At least 100 people, all clients of the late Miwa Ikegami, gathered at the Flatiron District hair salon on Jan. 23 to mourn and remember a hair stylist most of them had become as devoted to as they were to their own spouse. Even moreso. "In 30 years, I've changed homes," said one former client, "I've change jobs, I've changed husbands. But I never changed Miwa."
It's a bit of popular urban folklore that many New Yorkers (mostly women here) hesitate to consider leaving the city because they would have to find a new hairdresser. A barber that understands your head of hair—that is, if you're the sort of person who cares about their hair, which I think everyone is, either openly or secretly—is very difficult to come by. If you're lucky, you find one in your lifetime. And one that's actually a first-rate individual—that's priceless. Miwa was such a person. When people found her—and they often did by simply asking well-coifed strangers where they got their hair cut—they almost never left, even though her prices were somewhere in the stratosphere.
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