The iconic Marilyn Monroe name has been licensed to a line of beauty businesses including spas, nail boutiques and so-called "glamour rooms," and a combination of all three businesses will open this summer at the Hyatt Regency Maui Resort & Spa.
The beautiful, sexy, fun and generally unforgettable actress’s image will add a bit of sparkle to the resort, which retained its own AAA Four-Diamond ranking in a recently released list.
Marilyn Monroe Spas is led by CEO and founder Niki Bryan, a spa industry veteran, as well as Al Weiss, executive chairman, who previously served Disney as president of worldwide operations and had been with the company for some four decades.
Maui’s Marilyn Monroe Spa will encompass the spa, nail boutique and glamour room, providing the company’s full range of spa, manicure, pedicure, hairstyling and makeup services, said Gordon Tareta, chief operating officer for hotels and resorts.
The Marilyn Monroe Spa will succeed Spa Moana, operations of which MMS took over Jan. 1 for the transition in which "a majority of the staff" was retained, Tareta said.
"A lot of the focus is going to be bringing the social aspect to the spa," he said. The company is working with local cultural advisers to ensure that Hawaiian aspects are included in the experience while "making sure that Marilyn’s legacy" is reflected in a social, playful and fun environment, he said.
"We are developing experiences that are very specific for Maui, culturally sensitive and respectful," he said.
The facility will be markedly different from the two operations in Florida and the one in Monterey, Calif., which opened Tuesday, and the one opening in New York next week, he said.
For starters, the location of the spa within the Hyatt Regency Maui is such that "we don’t need pictures on the front walls," given "the most breathtaking views in the world."
The Maui spa, nail boutique and glamour room operations will welcome women and men but also will cater to "multigenerational parties," said Tareta, for bridal parties, mother-and-daughter time and the like. Services both men and women can get help relieve feet that are typically stuffed into dress shoes or stilettos.
Hotel spa services often are perceived as unattainable for area residents, but the company has lowered prices from $180 for a 50-minute session that might be typical elsewhere, to $120. Prices at the Marilyn Monroe Spa will be "anywhere from 17 to 25 percent less" than many hotel spas, he said.
Monroe "was very embracing of everybody, welcoming, regardless of background or socioeconomics. She really went out of her way to make everybody feel wonderful," and that is what the company hopes to achieve, he said.
Officials are exploring the possibility of a kamaaina discount or loyalty card sort of program to encourage repeat visits so you can "channel your inner Marilyn," he said.
The spa is hardly the megastar’s only connection to Hawaii.
Monroe and husband Joe DiMaggio, the baseball legend, stopped in Hawaii en route to their honeymoon in Japan in 1954, and pictures are all over the Internet, including a slide show of so-called "unpublished" photos of the lei-bedecked couple in the islands credited to Peter Sneyder.
Further, a rose-colored house designed by famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright for Monroe and subsequent husband Arthur Miller, but never built in Connecticut, serves as the clubhouse at the King Kamehameha Golf Club in Waikapu, Maui.
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On the Net:
» marilynmonroespas.com
» www.kamehamehagolf.com/frank-lloyd-wright.php
Win swag from Market City
If you are now or become an Instagram user, you could win cash from Market City Shopping Center just in time to usher in the Year of the Horse.
The center invites users to follow @MarketCityHI and to post pictures that to them best symbolize Chinese New Year’s meaning, or how they celebrate the occasion, using the hashtag #CNY2014.
"Our festivities always bring out hundreds in the community, but this year we wanted to invite our social media community to celebrate with us as well," said Tim Fong, vice president of the 66-year-old family-owned center, in a statement.
At noon Feb. 7 the top three photos, as voted on by Instagram users, will win "li see," or traditional red envelopes, filled with either $18 or $88, and will be notified by Market City officials.
The center and its tenants will celebrate the incoming Year of the Horse with a Chinese New Year celebration beginning at 10 a.m. Feb. 8.
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On the Net:
» www.marketcityhawaii. com
» http://www.hyattregencymaui.com/
» http://marilynmonroespas.com/
» Peter Sneyder Unpublished Hawaiian photos (1954) :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahmpUOzQBZE
» http://archives.starbulletin.com/2006/07/03/features/story01.html
» http://www.kamehamehagolf.com/frank-lloyd-wright.php
