Doggie Style: Canines Join Humans on Fashion Catwalk

With glossy hair, sparkling eyes and a clinging dress in turquoise silk, the model floats along the catwalk amid a blaze of swirling lights, dance beats and the click of cameras.

So far, so fashion. But this is no ordinary catwalk show: the model is a white poodle, one of 20 dogs making their catwalk debut in Japan's first " human-canine" fashion show.

The dog industry is booming in Japan. The economy may be sluggish but that has failed to dent an expanding pet industry worth more than a trillion yen (£4.7bn) a year. The number of dogs has doubled to more than 13 million in the past decade – there are actually fewer children under 12 in Japan. From dog yoga classes and dog sunglasses to dog gourmet restaurants and dog aromatherapy spas, there are few aspects of human life that have not been extended to include canines.

And so it was only a matter of time before the dogs hit the catwalk. The white poodle made her modelling debut in Tokyo at the weekend during the New Year Dog Party, a canine-related extravaganza that attracted crowds of up to 20,000 dog-lovers.