Ron made his way up to creative director of the Vidal Sassoon Salon in San Francisco.
Phillip Thomsett, the current manager, who's been with the company for 37 years, vividly remembers when the twins first arrived at Sassoon's. "Babies! They were just babies when they got here! ... And let me tell you, in a business that's seen everything from handmade, hand-sewn, high-class chic to Salvation Army flair, those two were a great example of having a little more dash than cash."
Paul Trapani
Ron and John Lee.
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At that time, Sassoon's pursued publicity on several different levels. One was doing makeovers on television, little segments that would air on the local network affiliates. It also put together "show teams" that would represent the company at demonstrations/ seminars, as part of larger productions such as fashion shows or industry tours promoting new products or hairstyle collections. Part of this strategy was to put a face to the Sassoon's name. Often, Ron was that face.
His creations garnered him accolades as the edgiest stylist in town. He was flown everywhere from Buenos Aires to London and Honolulu to represent the company. The travel budgets were nothing short of extravagant, which, Thomsett points out, went hand in hand with the era's glamorous excess and burgeoning celebrity obsession.
"For example, it got to the point that our top colorist, George Fischer, was flown every other weekend to New York to dye one or two people's hair," he says. "At a minimum it was once a month. Individually flown by a client. There was a lot of that going on in the early '80s."
Suiki came back from Hong Kong at the height of the epoch's showboating and opened his first salon, Pastels. He followed up shortly thereafter with the first Architects & Heroes salon on Powell Street (which is now Cowboys & Angels) and three more in succession: on Fillmore Street, on Bush Street, and then in Hong Kong.
Ron left Sassoon's to work with Suiki at the first Architects & Heroes. At the peak of his career, his drug habit also peaked. When one of the receptionists turned him on to heroin in 1985, it tipped the scales well out of manageability.
Thomsett recalls: "There is no doubt he was meant to go further than he did. Absolutely. ... There are only a handful of people who are genuinely talented, and he's one of those few. Whatever it is, he's got it ....
"Who knows what would've happened had he not gone off the deep end?"
With Ron falling apart so visibly that customers grew concerned, Suiki stepped in. He suggested a leave; Ron went to Hawaii, where he rented a chair from Billy Fong, who was still running his studio on Oahu. Ron struggled with his addiction for four years until he kicked it completely. He returned to San Francisco, where he celebrated 10 years of sobriety in February, while continuing to cut hair, now at Elevation.
In the same salon, one of the newest apprentices is the daughter of a sister of one of the old Suey Sing gang members. Her name is Leslie Chin; she is Tim and Leland Wong's niece.
She invited me to be a hair model, so she could practice blow-drying and styling as we talked. "I remember my uncles coming over when I was little to perm my mom and her sister's hair. They would spread their stuff all over the place, and it would take hours," Chin says. "I was very young, but I remember thinking they were very fashionable."
Years later, when her cousin, Angel Lao, worked at Architects & Heroes, she started hearing about the twins. "They used to run with my uncles. They were bad boys. I mean, hairdressers are already notorious for being wild. ... My uncle would always tell me not to get into the drugs, because some hairdressers go in and never come out."
She worked as a graphic designer before she was laid off twice and rethought her career direction. Her Uncle Tim encouraged her to take her artistic inclination to beauty school. When she completed her course and got her license, he bought her her first pair of professional shears.
"I was seven years younger than my brother Leland, Ron, and John and all those guys, so all I had to do was follow the yellow brick road! And now that I've made it, I want to pave the road for her," Tim explains.
"It's like any other business really: It's about who you know."
