Pahoa boy hits big time with body & soul
By Paula Rath
Advertiser Staff Writer
Tao Miller, O'ahu-based creator of the edgy Body & Soul line of cosmetics, is a celebrity in Japan, with features in trend-setting magazines such as JJ and Savvy. He's an up-and-comer in Mainland style circles, too, with mentions in InStyle, Vogue, Allure and Elle.
Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertiser
He was in Tokyo and Kyoto earlier this month opening his line in the Hankyu stores. Last week he was in Paris, at Sephora's flagship store on the Champs-Elysees to introduce Body & Soul in the European Sephora stores.
Tao Miller opened his first Body & Soul boutique in Waikiki with money he'd earned selling blue jeans to Japanese visitors. Now, it's an international line.
His denim line and spring collections are hot off the sewing tables and will be available in the Hawai'i Body & Soul stores soon, possibly this week.
But ask people in Hawai'i about him, and you're likely to get a blank stare.
Not even Miller's Hawai'i Kai neighbors know about his hit status in the worlds of fashion and beauty. But they will. Soon.
Miller's story is a rags-to-riches tale of an entrepreneur with big dreams and blind courage.
Miller, 31, is an unlikely mix, the son of a pair of artists with wanderlust who met while backpacking in Afghanistan. His Danish/Icelandic mother is a textile artist and weaver; his father, the son of Russian immigrants, is a glass blower.
"I was made in Moscow," Miller said with a smile, "raised in Sweden until I was 15, then moved to Hawai'i and graduated from Pahoa High School on the Big Island in 1987."
His entrepreneurial skills developed at an early age. In Sweden, he picked strawberries during the long summer days — but just enough baskets to pay for the bike he wanted. He also sold flower seeds and magazine subscriptions door-to-door.
During his senior year at Pahoa, he had several part-time jobs — busing tables, washing dishes, making pizza, whatever it took to meet his goals.
After a stint at the University of Hawai'i at Hilo, with summers at UH-Manoa, Miller moved to O'ahu with $200 in his pocket.
His first venture into retail was with High Performance Kites. A move to a motivational seminars company, as an operations person, offered him the benefit of attending seminars.
Will work for air fare
Name: Tao Miller Age: 31 Hometown: Pahoa; now lives in Hawai'i Kai Position: Internationally renowned creator of the Body & Soul cosmetics and new fashion collection, and Body & Soul stores in Hawai'i Quote: (On negotiating with major business players) "What I've learned is to be quiet and confident, whether talking to a company that's trying to acquire my company, or negotiating a spot in a store. Be quiet and absorb. Then come home and scramble." And scramble he does: During the past month, Tao Miller has traveled to Osaka, Tokyo and Paris to open Body & Soul boutiques within major international stores.
He wanted to attend a motivational seminar in San Francisco, but didn't have the air fare. So he created his own fund-raiser, hooking up with a baker in Hilo to pre-sell their artisan bread. In one week he earned enough for his air fare. He turned over the business venture to a friend and moved on. "My lesson was figuring out how to get there," Miller mused.
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How the son of two artists started an international trend
With the goal of getting into management within a couple of years, Miller went to work for two high-end retailers popular with Japanese visitors: Louis Vuitton and Raku Leather. He studied the language and the Japanese work ethic but wasn't able to join the management ranks. So he decided to move on.
Miller has always felt a tug toward Asia. "For some reason I have a bond with the Japanese people. Maybe it happened in that Tibetan temple, but there's definitely something there," Miller said. (Miller's parents named him after someone they met in a Tibetan temple.)
Recognizing the rising popularity of vintage Levi's among style-savvy young Japanese, Miller began scouting for used jeans. He found a rag dealer in St. Louis, Mo., who sold him used jeans for $6 a pound. Miller was in business.
From blue jeans to lipstick
Jeans segued into his first retail store, in Kapahulu, in 1992. Miller was just 21 years old. To jeans he added T-shirts, sports shirts and popular surf brands of apparel. He also found sources for whatever retailers and wholesalers from Japan were looking for.
"I brokered about $1 million of merchandise that first year," Miller said. "I didn't have to front the money, just make a deal and coordinate delivery."
He said he "needed to do something with the money," so he opened the first Body & Soul boutique, in King's Village in Waikiki. The shop immediately gained a reputation for being a haven of hip brands. Miller was the first to bring edgy lines such as Anna Sui, Chaiken & Capone and Tocca to Hawai'i.
"Our buying process is creative and strategic," Miller said. "We know our customers' likes and dislikes." Weekly staff meetings to seek feedback on new lines, coupled with an open-door policy throughout the company, has made Body & Soul a firm that encourages ideas and empowers its employees.
Miller decided to add cosmetics to his retail mix, so he contacted cosmetics giants MAC, Bobbi Brown, Lorac and Nars. None of them would answer his calls. Determined to bring in at least one line, he used his contacts at trendy JJ magazine in Japan to get them to write a story about Nars. They did. He sent the article to Nars, saying, "I did this for you. Now I just want five minutes of your time."
He got the Nars account, an exclusive in Hawai'i for two years, from 1995 to 1996. But when the exclusivity expired, Nars signed on with DFS Galleria, and Miller decided to let it go. "It was very disappointing, but the economies of scale made it impossible for me to compete."
Through building a relationship with the Japan fashion media, with assistance from his wife, Tomoko, a Japanese national, Miller still had lines of Japanese fashionistas flocking to his three boutiques, which now numbered three (Waikiki, Ward Warehouse, and Guam).
Body & Soul had become synonymous with hip, edgy fashion and beauty.
Modern vintage
For the ambitious young entrepreneur, having witnessed the rise of Nars, the next step was to create his own line of cosmetics under the label Body & Soul.
After two years of research and development, including testing by film-industry makeup artists, Miller launched Body & Soul cosmetics in Barneys New York.
The retro look of the graphics on the packaging, created by illustrator Ann Field (who also does work for Levi's and Starbucks), captures the romance and glamour of the 1920s to 1940s. Miller calls it "modern vintage."
The line caught the attention of American beauty editors immediately, and Body & Soul's popularity soared. The line is now featured in Sephora stores throughout the United States and Japan. This month, it will launched in 39 stores in Europe, followed by Canada in the fall.
Listen, then scramble
Recently an international cosmetics conglomerate contacted Miller regarding a buyout. He met with them, analyzed what they could offer, and rejected it.
How did a then-twentysomething-year-old from Honolulu manage in a high-powered meeting like that? "What I've learned is to be quiet and confident, whether talking to a company that's trying to acquire my company, or negotiating a spot in a store. Be quiet and absorb. Then come home and scramble."
In the meantime, Miller and his wife were bringing on their own line of fashion clothing. At first, Tomoko was the primary designer, with manufacturers in Hong Kong. Now she has teamed with English designer Tony Crosbey (a classmate of John Galliano, who is behind the new look at Christian Dior) to create a line of clothing, under the Body & Soul label, that includes everything from cutesy '80s-inspired T-shirts to preppy shirtwaist dresses, wool coats and knit motorcycle jackets.
And denim. Lots of denim. An entire collection is being made in California. "We've only seen the start of the denim craze in Japan," Miller said. Regular denim and stretch denim; vintage wash and dark wash; even a few show pieces featuring gold foil in denim.
Last month Seibu department stores in Japan introduced in-store Body & Soul clothing boutiques.
At this point Miller anticipates that 2001 revenues for Body & Soul will reach $7 million to $8 million. Not bad for a Pahoa grad who just turned 31.
Any plans for a move to New York or Tokyo? "No. I'm committed to Hawai'i simply because I like it here. I downsized my L.A. office because the work attitude here is better. In L.A. it's always 'What's in it for me?' And of course Hawai'i is a better place to live. Better weather, beautiful and happy people. It could limit me to live here, but so far I haven't let it."
