Kaoru Ichikawa proudly boasts to Spa! (4/10) that she’s the “ugliest mama-san in Ginza,” Tokyo’s posh nightclub district jam-packed with gorgeous hostesses — none of who can match the aesthetically challenged club operator’s success.
Just as many a nightclub hostess has plied her beauty to find fortune, Ichikawa discovered the best way to tap into the plentiful riches flowing through Ginza was to focus on her not-so-good looks.
“When I was 18, I went around nightclubs having interviews for high paying hostess jobs, but people kept saying things to me like ‘Do you have any idea where you are?’ and ‘You’d be better off going home, dear.’ I missed out on all the jobs, but I swore to myself that I was going to make it in Ginza,” the 39-year-old ugly mama-san tells Spa!
When Ishikawa did finally manage to snare a job at a Ginza club, she had to repeat the ordeal with customers, who were less than pleased to see her when she was surrounded by a bevy of beautiful co-workers.
“They used to complain about being charged to spend time with a dog. And they had every right to. I used to work with some women whose beauty was eye-popping. I realized then that my only hope was to sell myself on my personality. Customers would call me a dog and I’d agree with them, then concentrate on what I needed to do to make sure they enjoyed themselves at our club,” she says.
Ishikawa tells the weekly she first realized she was ugly while still in elementary school.
“I joined a theater group, but kept on missing out on every part I auditioned for. It was then that I realized I wasn’t beautiful enough to get the lead female roles,” Ishikawa tells Spa! “I then started going for the ‘ugly sidekick’ parts and was taken on one after the other. I even got work doing TV commercials.”
Ishikawa kept up the momentum she’d built up when she eventually made it to Ginza and nightclub hostessing, figuring that customers would rather chat and have a drink with somebody interesting over somebody who was beautiful but boring. Her plan worked and she found her way into one of the district’s more suave clubs, which she was soon filling with customers wanting to drink with her.
By the time Ishikawa was 28, she’d made enough money to open a club of her own and was soon so successful even tax authorities were asking her how she’d managed to make so much money despite her lack of beauty.
Her nightclub operation, which extended to three clubs — Goe, Mon and Uen — has been such a success Ishikawa has been able to branch out into a Japanese restaurant and Renew, a massage parlor opening in Hawaii this month. Her book, “Busu Mama-San Bijiness Seiko Hosoku (The Ugly Mama-san’s Rules for Successful Business)” has even become a best-seller.
“Even now I still don’t try to make myself more beautiful than I am. Even if it’s a bit embarrassing to reveal so much of myself, I do it because it apparently inspires lots of my customers to realize that they can live an open lifestyle like I do,” Ginza’s self-professed “ugliest mama-san” tells Spa! “Normally, my customers have to pretend to be something they’re not when they go out to work, but they know when they come to my club they can just be themselves.” (By Ryann Connell)
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