Elegance is not just having your clothes and personal grooming just so," says Maki Nomiya. "It's also doing even mundane things, like eating, with grace."

I'm here at the fashionable offices of Nomiya's agent in Harajuku to talk to the singer ahead of her "Beautiful People" series of recitals. The room we're in is softly lit. On the table is an unopened box of cakes from a French patisserie and Nomiya speaks carefully enunciating phrases delicately as if the words themselves were also delicious treats. Her comments are illustrated with elegant hand movements and punctuated by the gentle "ting" made by her gold bangles.

Nomiya is one of the few Japanese artists to have gained international recognition. During the 1990s she was frontwoman for Pizzicato Five, a band that spearheaded the Shibuya-kei music scene and toured Europe and North America.