About Carlos Dimas

Carlos Dimas will be competing in the 2008 NPC Royal Palm Classic Bodybuilding & Figure Championship on Saturday, September 6, 2008. Carlos is a veteran in the bodybuilding circuit and has competed and placed in other events, such as The Gulf Coast Body Building Championship and Muscle Mania. Not only is Carlos a renowned body builder but also a celebrity in the salon industry. Dimas' hair creations have been featured on everything from local newspapers to CNN and has won numerous hair related awards in the Hairworld Championship International events.

Carlos's newest artistic endeavor will symbolize the importance of everyones involvement in this years Presidential Election. Dimas is sculpting a sinking ship out of hair to stand as a metaphor for our declining economy. The ship is approximately 3-4 feet in length and will show a detailed scene of the 9/11 disaster, including the Twin Towers being struck by the airplanes as well as underground subway stations. Billowing smoke and scenes of the disaster will be depicted in this artistic creation. With our Presidential Election right around the corner, Carlos felt that it is important for everyone to voice their opinion in this election to elect the individual to pull us out of this sinking economy and guide us back to stability.

You are invited to see Carlos compete for the the Gold at Cape Coral High School, located at 2300 Santa Barbara Blvd. Cape Coral, Fl 33991 on Saturday, September 6, 2008 at 7pm. General seating is $25 per person and V.I.P. Seating is $35 per person.

Please contact the Salon for more information at 239-481-8010 . To see more of Carlos's art work displayed at the Salon stop by at 6338 Presidential Ct, Ste. 104, Fort Myers, Fl 33919.

American Original Artist Around The World
See the series on SunDance Channel

STYLE REPRESENTS YOU

Please call 239.481.8010 or email info@hairbycarlos.com to set up an appointment or to order any products. Thank you!

July 2007 - With scissors and endless cans of hair spray, Dimas has shaped human hair into rocket ships and alien landscapes. He's teased it into saxophones and the Titanic. And he's sculpted it into ships from the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies — complete with braided anchor chains and masts made of hair-wrapped curlers.

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CARLOS DIMAS

What: Hairstylist and artist, owner of Hair by Carlos salon in Fort Myers
City of birth: Edinberg, Texas
City of residence: Cape Coral
Hobbies: Hair sculpture, fishing in the canal behind his house, body building, riding his Harley-Davidson motorcycle

Carlos Dimas can do things with hair that most people have never imagined.

Forget perms and dye jobs — although Dimas does those, too. This Fort Myers stylist makes art.

With scissors and endless cans of hair spray, Dimas has shaped human hair into rocket ships and alien landscapes. He's teased it into saxophones and the Titanic. And he's sculpted it into ships from the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies — complete with braided anchor chains and masts made of hair-wrapped curlers.

Dimas admits it sounds a bit weird: Taking home trash bags of hair from his Fort Myers salon and transforming them into sculpture. Even his gym buddies sometimes wonder if, perhaps, he's inhaled a bit too much Aqua Net.

"At first, they don't get it," Dimas says. "They look at me like, 'You've lost it. You've been playing with hair too much.'"

His weight-lifting friends might not always understand. But others certainly get it.

Dimas' hair creations have been featured on everything from local newspapers to CNN. And he's won dozens of hair-related awards, including silver and bronze medals at the 2000 HairWorld Championships (aka, "The Hair Olympics") in Germany.

Most recently, a film crew spent a week with Dimas for a show titled "American Originals" on the Sundance Channel. The show doesn't have an air date yet.

Despite Dimas' international reputation, however, most Lee County people probably know him best for his bare-skinned billboards.

The salon billboards featured a well-oiled Dimas flexing his bodybuilding muscles. He lifts weights and competes in national bodybuilding competitions.

Dimas thought his dark-skinned hardbody would draw attention to his salon, Hair by Carlos, and the billboards stood there for years. But then his 13-year-old daughter started complaining last year.

"She said, 'Dad, my friends say you're naked on a billboard,'" he says. "It was bothering her. So I took them down."

Now with the upcoming Sundance show, everyone can get to know Carlos and his hairy art.

Emmy Award-winning director Mark Lewis learned about Dimas while covering the 31st annual HairWorld Championships in Moscow. Lewis was intrigued by Dimas' reputation and quirky talent, and he thought the hairstylist would be perfect to kick off the "American Originals" series.

"We're looking for different American people doing interesting things," Lewis said. "I think he's an extraordinary guy.

"He's very charismatic. And he's a fantastic hairstylist and hair designer."

Artistry in Hair

In a 6 and 1/2-minute demo for the series, Dimas talks about his hair-filled life and growing up on Immokalee's Seminole reservation, where he often had trouble fitting in with other kids. His mother is part Aztec Indian and Mexican; his dad is Spanish.

Dimas says he never felt like he belonged anywhere until he started cutting hair. Now he's full of confidence.

"I can't play a musical instrument," he says, "but I can make my scissors sing."

Dimas has come far in his 46 years. And along the way, he came perilously close to spending his life with a buzz cut instead of his current style: Long, glossy black hair with right-angle sideburns.

Born in Texas, Dimas moved with his family to Immokalee when he was 2. After high school, he joined the U.S. Navy and served as a switchboard operator on a destroyer. His career path seemed set in stone.

Then, one day, he visited a friend at Arthur's Beauty College in Fort Myers. And that changed everything.

"It just happened instantly," Dimas says, sitting in the breakfast nook of his pumpkin-colored, Southwest-themed Cape Coral house. He's wearing purple shorts, a black tank top and Corona flip-flops.

"It was the atmosphere, the scissors. It was perfect," he says. "It was like this energy and this light hit me.

"This is your life. This is where you belong."

He quit the Navy, signed up at the hair school and graduated nine months later in 1983.

Dimas had an enormous ego in those days, says his wife, Lori. In fact, he's still got confidence to burn.

"He'd come into the room and he'd say, 'I'm Carlos,'" Lori Dimas says. "He'd say, 'I'm Carlos, and I'm the world's best.'

"He always said that, and this was way before he was ever the world's best."

Carlos Dimas laughs when she says this.

"I forgot I used to say that," he says and grins.

Then he adds, unapologetically: "I believed in myself."

It's that unwavering self-confidence that's led Dimas to greater and greater heights of theatricality and creativity.

He used to dye his hair pink and cut people's hair using broken bottles. He'd wear capes. Dimas is willing to follow his muse wherever it takes him.

Friend Bruce Ginsberg, 59, of Fort Myers says he's amazed by Dimas' boundless creative energy.

"He's an original type of guy," Ginsberg says. "Especially for here in Fort Myers."

A need to create

Dimas says he feels a constant need to create, whether it's metal sculptures of Native American spirits or hair sculptures of saxophones and boats.

He starts his hair sculptures with a base of Styrofoam or wire mesh. Then he attaches strands of hair and cements it into place with lots glue, pins and hair spray. The final details range from braided waves and coral (for his "Pirates" ship) to blond curlicues for musical keys (for his saxophone).

Dimas says he's got even bigger artistic goals for the coming year.

For instance, he's planning a series of six or seven more boats from "Pirates of the Caribbean." Dimas thinks he might put them all in a glass case and take them to trade shows as a calling card.

The hair world, he explains, is all about ego, artistry and theatricality. That's why he's always saying things like, "I'm the best in the world." And it's why he often wears unusual outfits for shows. For one "American Originals" shoot, he wore a tight black T-shirt and a metal-studded Goth skirt — slit high to reveal most of his well-muscled leg.

"It's marketing," Dimas says. "I'll do some bizarre stuff for shows. I'll wear a skirt in a minute."

As for the hair boats, he says they're good practice. His "Pirates" series is getting him sharp for next year, when he hopes to compete again in the Hair Olympics in Chicago in March. It would his first time competing in eight years.

In a fleeting moment of humility, Dimas admits he's older now, and his reflexes aren't what they used to be. Still, he thinks he's got a strong chance of taking the gold this time.

"I'll have to get glasses," he says. "But I want to do this. I just have an itch."

Whether or not he takes top honors, Dimas says he'll always make art. And he'd rather make it with hair than with paints or pencils.

Hair lets him express himself while making the world a more beautiful place.

"My passion is hair," he says. "I change people's look and make them come alive.

"That is my art: Teasing and shaping and pinning."

Hair By Carlos | 6338 Presidential Ct, Ste 104 | Ft. Myers, Florida 33919