It’s the first weekend of September in Tokyo and the city is sweltering. Its usually polished pinstripe-suited salary workers look a little worse for wear, and I’ve stopped counting the number of printed camp-collar shirt and Bermuda shorts permutations that permeate the streets. I head underground and into a photo studio in the Chiyoda Ward, where photography assistants are calmly assembling lighting equipment, and a hairstylist attends to faux locks on a mannequin head with the level of tranquility one would apply to a bonsai.
Koki, the kernel of this whole operation, is spiritedly chattering away with her mother. She’s seated upright with textbook posture, and dressed rather formally as compared to how most models would at a photoshoot — heeled pumps and a shorts suit set. The side effects of summer have dissipated with my descend.
The erstwhile comma — the one punctuating the 16-year-old model’s professional name — is in place for syntax, but it’s also part of her moniker. At the beginning of her career last year (she’s now signed to Elite Model Management Paris and The Society Management in the States), the Japanese teenager decided to go by just the pseudonym Koki, omitting the surname she was born with. The latter is a telltale nod at her starstudded lineage. Squint, and you’ll see that she’s inherited the winning good looks of her father.
Within the span of a year, Koki,’s arresting mien has covered numerous Japanese and Chinese magazines, and a sundry of advertising campaigns. On the ‘gram, she’s amassed 1.8 million followers (at press time), despite having only started posting in May 2018. They’re largely editorial images speckled with red carpet, fashion show and travel mementos (a run-in with Kristen Stewart elicits a gushing caption), given that brands like Chanel and Bvlgari have been quick to anoint her a friend of the house.
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