“If life was fair, I’d be 5 foot 5,” Atsuko Tanaka said as she fondled a thick strand of hair and worked it over with a comb and blow dryer.
Even with the stylist chair set to its lowest level, and standing on tiptoes, Ms. Tanaka had trouble styling the higher regions of the client’s head.
“I’m only four-eleven, so I have to wear heels,” she said.
Another testament to the random nature of life is that Ms. Tanaka, 39, who grew up in Japan with no knowledge of Jewish culture, now specializes in styling expensive wigs worn by ultra-Orthodox Jewish women seeking to conform to the requirement of religious law to cover their hair after marriage.
“They call me the Japanese sheitel macher,” she said, using a Yiddish term for wig seller. Ms. Tanaka does not speak Yiddish and she does not even sell wigs, but she has become the stylist to see for a certain set of moneyed women who follow a tradition often associated with modesty, even if the wig prices can top $5,000.
Looking modest is not a strong suit here at the Julien Farel salon on Madison Avenue, where Ms. Tanaka works. A wash-cut-blow dry for a wig can take more than two hours, and her prices start at $450.
“They’re paying too much for modesty,” Ms. Tanaka said. “My clients want me to cover their head with something that looks better than their own hair.”
These weeks before Passover, which begins on March 25, are her busiest of the year. Last weekend, she was flown to Toronto to style wigs at an ultra-Orthodox wedding. Out-of-town jobs are common, as are house calls.
She is constantly ferried by car service to style wigs in private homes in the Five Towns on Long Island or in Brooklyn or Monsey, N.Y.
One recent weekday, Ms. Tanaka was working on a wig being worn by Pesha Blum, 27, a fashion publicist who lives on the Upper West Side and who said her wig of “European virgin undyed” hair cost roughly $5,000.
The sleek salon is a far cry from the basement beauty salons of “sheitel ladies” in ultra-Orthodox enclaves in Brooklyn, where many wig-wearing women go. On Ms. Tanaka’s counter one recent weekday were several head-shaped stands that supported wigs whose combined prices could cover a down payment on a starter home.
Ms. Tanaka has handled some high-pressure hairdos — working on Japanese and Saudi princesses, and celebrities like Scarlett Johansson and Marisa Tomei — but nothing is scarier, she said, than cutting a wig.
“The hardest part is that you cannot mess up — the hair will not grow back,” said Ms. Tanaka, who had just finished shaping a $7,000 wig. “You make one mistake, and it’s ruined.”
Now she was working on a wig worn by Rivka Cohen, 25, of the Upper West Side. Ms. Tanaka, whose tiny hands seem well-suited for styling shears, shaved strands and snipped ends of wig hair, always in small takes.
“If you spend thousands of dollars on a wig and the stylist botches the color, you’re not going to come back,” Ms. Cohen said.
And this is where Ms. Tanaka’s Japanese background comes in.
“These women know I’m from Japan so I have to be perfect — it’s our culture, we have to be precise,” she said. “They’re bringing their culture to me, so I want to bring my culture to them.”
Ms. Tanaka lives in Tenafly, N.J., with her husband — he is Jewish, but hardly religious — and their 6-year-old daughter. Starting out as a teenager, Ms. Tanaka apprenticed in salons in Tokyo. She had never cut a wig or had a Jewish client when she came to New York at 22.
But she learned the ropes working for Mark Garrison, a well-known stylist whose East Side salon specializes in high-end wigs.
Soon, her name got around, and now all her business comes by word of mouth. Ms. Blum said her hairstylist in Israel recommended Ms. Tanaka.
“You spend $5,000 on a wig — you don’t want to mess around with it,” Ms. Blum said. “We don’t have to wear a wig out of modesty. We do it because it’s what God wants us to do.”
Then she looked at Ms. Tanaka to clarify, but got only a shrug.
“Don’t ask me,” Ms. Tanaka said with that familiar mischievous twinkle in her eye. “I’m Japanese.”
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