A hair appointment with Jaime Silva Neto could easily turn into a night out on the town. After your hair was perfectly coiffed, he’d encourage his friends, who were also clients, to hang out with him.
“He would finish with my hair and then tell me to stay a while longer, or go to dinner with him,” said Lisa Stinziano of Woodstock, a client and close friend. “He invited everyone to go everywhere with him.”
Mr. Silva Neto was the co-owner of Silva & Thomas Hair Studio. He was an outgoing person and had the perfect personality for a stylist, said Todd Baines, his partner of nearly 13 years, who lived with him in Atlanta.
“He loved developing relationships with people,” Mr. Baines said. “And all of his clients became friends.
Jaime de Assunçăo e Silva Neto, of Atlanta, died Wednesday at Atlanta Medical Center after a brief illness. He was 45. His body was cremated and a funeral mass is planned for 1 p.m. Monday at The Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Atlanta. SouthCare Cremation Society and Memorial Centers, Marietta, is in charge of arrangements.
Mr. Silva Neto was born in Grajaú, Maranhão, Brazil, the sixth of seven children. The son of a Brazilian supreme court judge, he went to college in Rio to study law. He soon discovered that was not what he really wanted to do, said Nilma Silva Mills, a sister who lives in Canton.
“With a father as a judge, we all studied law at some point,” she said with a laugh. “But when he was younger, he was always doing something with girls’ hair.”
Mrs. Mills could hardly contain her laughter when remembering a story about her brother trimming a friend’s bangs too short.
In 1989, after living in Rio for a couple of years, Mr. Silva Neto decided to follow an older sister to the United States to start a new life, Mrs. Mills said. He enrolled in a beauty college in Knoxville, Tenn., where his sister lived. After graduation he moved to Atlanta where he eventually helped open Silva & Thomas.
Mr. Silva Neto was an artist at heart, Ms. Stinziano said. His artistic eye kept his salon clients happy.
“But he never did anything that caused his clients to leave the salon in shock,” she said. “But he was very good at his craft.”
Outside of the salon he was just as talented, she said. His love for gardening kept beautiful flowers in the homes of many of his clients. Mr. Silva Neto had an endearing way of inviting himself into the lives and homes of his friends and making their lives better.
“He would come into your house and make it his own, and people let him do it,” Ms. Stinziano said. “He would redecorate your whole house if you let him.”
The life Mr. Silva Neto created was his American dream, which meant he was to be able to freely live his life, open his business and be the person he wanted to be, friends and family said.
“He was a force and his personality was bigger than life,” Mr. Baines said. “He would do things that aggravated you, but you loved him all the more for it.”
Mr. Silva Neto is also survived by his parents, Joao Manoel de Assunçăo e Silva and Marize de Assunçăo e Silva of São Luís, Brazil; sisters, Ana Marcia de Assunçăo e Silva of São Luís, Brazil and Solange Silva Pfahl of Newnan; and brothers, Joao Manoel Filho de Assunçăo e Silva, Carlos Cesar de Assunçăo e Silva and Francisco de Assunçăo e Silva, all of São Luís, Brazil.
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