What makes a costume fetishwear? There are many aspects to fetish costume, but it directly affects the wearer's state of mind or emotions. You can easily change your character when you are wearing fetish costume. Fetish costume materials feel pleasurable, like rubber, satin leather... so you can feel sensation.

What fabrics do you like to work with? I really like latex costume, but you get very warm wearing it. You sweat very much.

Who are your clients? Professional Dominatrix and Fetish party goers...(Yukiko makes humming noises, hedging a little)...I suppose I can tell you - I have a client who is a slave to the president of a Japanese company, she's like a lifetime slave. She's 28 years old. She's been with him two or three years... she can put two beer cans into her anus. She wants to put something this size - gestures with both hands about 30cm apart - but the human body has pressure so if she just push it in, then...

It comes out? Yes. So I like to make a protector. It's very good, it's a harness so this thing that she wants to put in is very heavy, like 3kg, so I make a harness so that the weight is taken on the shoulders. It's like a really, really specialised job... The design is very challenging because she is wearing this for 24 hours a day. Also the material shouldn't scratch her so rubber was the best choice, but it's still going to be a little uncomfortable.

Perhaps that's the idea. What about the dominators? Mistresses and - do they have male... Master.

Of course. What do they do? In generally speaking, 60 percent of Japanese men are submissive... actually I - before I was working for an S&M bar so I really think most of the customers were submissive. Sometimes they don't realise that but I can feel their tendencies. It's not very strict dominance, only 10 male dominants or so have I seen in Tokyo.

So if Japanese people are more playful and sometimes more submissive, are the role-plays and fantasies that foreigners and Japanese have different? I can't see a clear difference but sometimes, just generally talking, Western people just want to be whipped. Whip. whip, whip (she gestures) or piercing, piercing, piercing, half of them, or the rest of them are, say, just foot fetishists, just lick, lick, lick. Japanese people are a bit more submissive and they don't go to the extreme.

What fetishes are the most popular in Japan? The very major thing is rope bondage. I think the most popular thing in Japan is rope work. Japan is really, really good at tying knots. Actually I can do rope work very well. I can suspend you from the ceiling very easily. Lots of western friends try to learn but they can't.

Is it dangerous if people try to learn by themselves from a magazine? Yes. I think quite a few people have been killed. Anyway, especially when it's done to women it's very, very beautiful. Women's bodies have many, many curves. The rope can stay perfectly. If you don't have tits, rope can't sit...

Is there anybody that you would love to design a costume for? Chotto Muzukashii... - (retreats into amused Japanese) - I think I won't be happy to make a costume for supermodels because they are too perfect. I want to change the shape of the woman's body, like using a corset, so I prefer fat women. I'd like to make a costume for - I forget the name - Italian? - often plays with Marcello Mastrioianni...
Oh - from La Dolce Vita, the blonde. Perfect.