Long, leggy and fair of face

 There are plenty of Japanese clothes but only a few Japanese models at Tokyo Fashion Week
TOKYO FASHION WEEK has long been a platform for edgy Japanese designers - but perhaps more remarkable is just how few Japanese models grace its catwalks.

Tall, white and often blonde young women dominate the runway, with a foreign look that is now commonplace in Japanese magazines, shows and advertisements.

"It's kind of odd," says 24-year-old Rika Tatsuno, one of the few Japanese models appearing on the Tokyo catwalks, where she reckons she is in an Asian minority of about 10 to 15 per cent.

"Definitely we would like to see more Japanese models."

A lack of racially diverse catwalks is by no means unique to Tokyo, which is vying to compete on the global fashion stage. But its lack of Japanese faces is striking.

In Japan, fashion is divided into "wafuku", or traditional Japanese clothing, and "yofuku", which literally means "Western-style clothing" and is now everyday wear.

While Japanese models are usually chosen to showcase the former, such as kimonos by celebrated designer Jotaro Saito, they have limited opportunities in the latter category - even when the "Western-style" clothes are Japanese creations that will mostly find domestic buyers.

"It's natural. If I was designing traditional Japanese clothes I would pick Japanese models," says young designer Hiroki Uemura of the "byU" brand, who made his debut at Tokyo last week.

He describes his collection as an adult version of the hugely popular "kawaii" style - the Japanese word for cute or adorable - but one also influenced by the "mismatched" look of British actress and singer Jane Birkin in her youth.

"I want to show the 'made in Japan' aspect, but the Japanese are attracted to Europe and foreign countries, so in order to promote this brand's image I use foreign models," he says.

Backstage ahead of Uemura's show, a group of willowy blondes sat texting and eating sandwiches while stylists touched up their make-up and curled their hair.

Kali Myronenko, a 20-year-old from Ukraine, first appeared on the Tokyo runway when she was 17 and is now based in the city, where the insatiable appetite for her looks gives her a regular stream of work.

"Japanese people... like this idea of being cute-looking, young, so many Japanese people wear contact lenses with the blue eyes," she says.

She thinks the interest in her appearance is down to a typical yearning for what you don't have, such as curly-haired people desperate for straight hair.

"You don't want to be how you are because you see yourself everyday in the mirror," she says.

In Japan that yearning to be different has, as in other Asian countries, led to a robust market for skin-whitening creams, while dyed-blonde hair is not an uncommon sight in the corridors of fashion week, held in Tokyo's trendy Shibuya district.

Fashion PR worker Kaori Yasuike says it's not at all strange for her to see blonde Caucasians strutting down the runway, because she sees them all the time in magazines.

"We want to look at someone who we admire as an ideal body type," she points out.

In 2014, Vogue Japan featured only three women of colour on 14 covers, only one of whom was of Japanese descent, according to a survey by online forum The Fashion Spot.

In pursuit of their ideal look, Tokyo agents nowadays choose many of their models from Eastern Europe or Russia, according to fashion week casting director Bobbie Tanabe.

He says they are given attractive contracts with flights, apartments and drivers, meaning they cost about twice as much to hire as local models. Meanwhile, some Japanese youngsters seeking to make it on the catwalk now try their luck in fashion centres such as New York, Tenable says.