When Adam Saaks says he is ready to start cutting on the body, he ain't kiddin'. No, he's not a surgeon. He's a butcher "cuture" artist — a T-shirt deconstructionist who literally cuts designs out of an Ed Hardy T-shirt while the customer is wearing the shirt.

It's a little bit fashion show, a little bit performance art and a lot of entertainment ... sexy entertainment that's entirely appropriate for the venues in which he chooses to design: nightclubs.

When he takes to the stage in The Diamond Head Grill at the W Hotel for New Year's Eve, Saaks will attack the T-shirts worn by Island women with a pair of Gingher scissors and a lot of attitude.

On a makeshift runway at an event in the Hanohano Room a few months ago, we watched with awe as Saaks began his performance art. He first looked his female client straight in the eye. Then his eye roved over her body, assessing the curves he wanted to play up.

Once the scissors came out, he rapidly cut up the Ed Hardy T-shirts, a metallic tattoo-inspired brand that is blowing out of stores all over the world, snipping and tying and braiding the body-hugging garment.

"My passion is creating a wearable work of art to suit each individual, each creation fits the unique physique of the client's body shape," Saaks said.

Saaks, a former stylist to Sharon Stone, has created T-shirt art for clients such as Alicia Keys, Jessica Simpson, Carmen Electra and Paris Hilton.

Saaks said nightclubs have proven to be the right venue for Ed Hardy.

"That's where we can reach that critical 21-to-35 age group," he said.

He is not alone. Nightclubs in Honolulu are increasingly merging entertainment and fashion. Flash and Matty Boy, producers of Skyline events, are hard-core fashionistas and often merge music and fashion. The W has long been a venue for up-and-coming designers. The O Lounge provides a periodic runway; thirtyninehotel enjoys mashing up art, music, fashion and film; and Pearl, the newest addition to Ala Moana Center, has built a bar that doubles as a runway.

The club needs to be sure to get the music/fashion mix right, however.

In the Hanohano Room, Saaks was not into what the DJ was offering and he nearly walked off in an artist's temper tantrum. Surely the New Year's Eve event will prove an appropriate fit.

Reach Paula Rath at paularath@aol.com.