Seeing double at twins’ hair salon.
Identical twin sisters match styles, in life and in their salon business, Mirror Image
Tracy Cameron and Treena Chiu are identical, from the eternity symbol tattooed on their middle fingers down to the diamond flashing in their smiles.
Even their husbands and mother still get the identical twins mixed up sometimes.
After all, the two women were born 13 minutes apart and now live side by side with their families in St. Albert, one in a bungalow, the other in a two-storey, with a shared backyard and trampoline and the hair salon they co-own, aptly named Mirror Image.
They have the same wedding day, although six years apart. They have the same diamond embedded into the same upper right tooth.
They have the same tattoos. And they have the same best friend with some of the same tattoos.
Cameron and Chiu have the same nail polish, changed every few weeks to match the seasons. They have the same hair style (sometimes parted on opposite sides), same distressed jeans and Aerosole wedges and Vince Camuto perfume and draped-neck blouses. And yes, they even have the same bras and underwear: they buy two of everything.
In fact, except when one is out on a date night and the other cuddled in pyjamas for a comfy evening in, the 40-year-olds purposefully dress the same every day (dainties not always included).
“We loved it (in childhood) and we continue to love it,” says Cameron, first-born and the devil in the oftused devil-angel analogy applied to identical twins.
Cameron is more protective, keeps her cards close to her chest and doesn’t pry a lot of information out of customers.
Chiu is more emotional, opens her heart to everyone and can tell a mean story complete with details and teardrops.
Only the twins’ older brother by two years has been able to tell the girls apart since birth.
“We were so identical,” Cameron says.
Is this cultivated sameness weird? Perhaps, but also convenient, a testament to their close bond and a clever business idea.
If they go out dressed differently, they are constantly approached and interrupted by curious onlookers who want to know if they’re twins.
Dressed the same, their twinsiness is obvious and Cameron and Chiu can carry on buying groceries or drinking coffee without much hassle. Their very laid-back husbands appreciate that, as do their hair clients who look for discrepancies and rarely find them.
“They think it’s cool (that we’re dressed the same), but they think it’s really weird when we’re not identical,” Cameron says. “They’re thrown off.”
The sisters co-ordinate their daily outfit via texts and phone calls, but also during their morning workouts together.
It’s so much smoother than the approximate six months in high school when they decided to go solo. Fights ensued every day over outfits, since they love the same styles.
Their mother demanded an end to the bickering, and Cameron and Chiu have dressed the same since. In fact, when they walk into Winners and go in different directions, they say they end up choosing the same outfit anyway.
The two didn’t plan on getting married the same day. When Cameron married husband Tyson on Aug. 9, Chiu jokes she tried to go along for the honeymoon. Chiu tied the knot with husband Alex the same day six years later; the day was chosen as fortuitous for a prosperous marriage by a traditional fortuneteller in the Asian community.
Tyson’s advice to Alex? “You’re pretty much marrying two people.” Indeed. The two didn’t plan to have kids so close in age. In fact, when Cameron initially had trouble conceiving, Chiu believed she wouldn’t have any babies either.
“If I couldn’t have kids, she wouldn’t have kids,” Cameron remembers Chiu thinking.
But when Cameron became pregnant, Chiu followed eight months after. Their second children are only five weeks apart.
“We both wanted twins, but we didn’t get that,” said Chiu, whose two daughters are ages nine and eight, while Cameron’s two sons are 10 and eight.
“We are compared every day of our lives,” Chiu continues. “Unfortunately, we’re judged every day.” They admit they set themselves up, but Chiu is so averse to competition and comparison, that even though she was the faster runner of the two in high school, she would often purposefully blow the races they competed in together.
“I would slow down for her to catch up because we wanted to cross the finish line together,” Chiu said. The same concept applies for dressing the same — they cross the finish line looking polished, neither less beautiful, nor less put together.
Cameron describes it as a choice to wear a uniform of sort, like the students down the road, or the players on a volleyball team.
“There’s no difference between that and what we’re doing. It’s a choice. It’s just clothing,” Cameron said.
“It doesn’t matter what you wear. Your personality comes out,” Chiu adds. “Our personalities are so different.”
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