Tokyo Fashion Week: Backstage with Rei Hamada

Plumes of hairspray create a suffocating fog over a group of fashion models waiting to be beautified in a room overlooking Tokyo's trendy Shibuya district. A full eight hours before Rei Hamada is set to grace the catwalk at Tokyo Fashion Week in a designer kimono, coffee is gulped and snacks

munched between pit-stops for hair, nails and make-up.

"Before I started I didn't imagine modelling would be quite so hard," she tells AFP. "The runways and photo shoots look gorgeous but it's tough. It can be a bit chaotic and you do need a lot of self-control." As a conveyor belt of hair and make-up artists work on the models, celebrated designer Jotaro Saito pops in to greet the statuesque women carefully selected for one of the hottest tickets of the week.