giant life size fashion chimp

sakura not only marks the traditional turn of the year - school's out, taxes due, rice to be planted - but also the presentation of tokyo's fashion collections for next autumn and winter.
it all started a month ago, when taishi nobukuni walked up to me in a restaurant around the corner with the question whether I'd be ready to "walk" for the takeo kikuchi show. an extra audition, a couple of fittings, a visit to the model agency (hobbies: urban design) and a hair styling session later, I ended up doing two shows: avant-garde street- and surfwear for nobukuni/kikuchi (on the running tracks of the national stadium), and the more classy catwalk outfit for mon tsuki. big fun - lots of new (exclusively foreign) mates (some faces strangely familiar... from ads around town), flashing polaroids, flamboyant stylists ("more... intensity") - and some extra bucks.
grabbed this sequence with fitting shots from the montsuki make-up table - hope professional pix of the shows follow... find the amateur chimp!