These are the ladies of the École de Simon, a Sendagaya institution that teaches the art of doll-making. Under the direction of Simon Yotsuya and his staff of two, they spend months and years at evenings and weekends mastering its various techniques. After no less than four years of study they can finally enjoy the satisfaction of designing and fashioning their own perfect doll. Few, if any, in the room have professional aspirations.

Yotsuya, who founded the school 19 years ago, is an unusual role model, judging by the dolls which he produces himself. He calls himself a "doll professional" rather than an artist, but his creations turn up in galleries, encased in glass, unclothed or in their underwear. Yotsuya's dolls are anything but cute: they have the look of adults trapped in the bodies of children, or stunted angels, their expressions somewhere between religious rapture and sexual ecstasy. Their bodies, often lacking limbs or with windows revealing their internal organs, have little in common with the work of his students. Most of them are working on knee-high figures which a little girl would be happy to own, for which they will later sew flouncy dresses.

But Yotsuya believes that his own unsettling figures, the cutesy creations of his students share the same soul as the great works of figurative sculpture. He poses the question: by what criteria is a human figure classified as a doll, a fetish object, or a sculpture? What, essentially, is the difference between a Henry Moore bronze and an inflatable Dutch wife? "The desire to create something is the best part of humanity," says Yotsuya, after long reflection. "We all work with limbs, with faces, but the final product is the spirit you put into it."

Yotsuya, a handsome 51-year-old, the son of a tango violinist and a dancer, who left school at 10 to be educated at home, knew from childhood that dolls were his vocation. His earliest subject was the local postman. Then, in a second-hand book shop, he came across a book of photographs by Hans Bellmar, a Danish photographer who lived in Paris during the '30s and produced striking psycho-erotic photographs of double-jointed mannequins, which are a direct predecessor of Yotsuya's work. "I was so shocked when I saw Bellmar's dolls," he says. "They made me realize that `doll equals doll.' Dolls can be the theme of dolls, they don't just have to be human beings reduced in size." In 1973 he exhibited his startling neo-dolls at Ginza's Gallery Aoki; in 1977 he opened l'École.

Yotsuya's two decades of teaching have provided him with interesting insights into the relationship between the dolls and their creators. Most of his 80 students are the ubiquitous yangu o-eru (Young Office Ladies), "There is power in their work," he says of his doll-like students, "but in general it's very weak. Still, there is a `self' trying to get out."

Time is a vital element. "Coming in every week, working just a little at a time, shaping this or changing that, they begin to put in a part of their spirit," he insists. "When I see my students' dolls, I think they're alive. Some people are living every day, but you can't say they're alive. But as the students work on their little figures, you can see their hearts move, until they finally create something, and it's still strange to me how often the faces of the dolls match their maker's. Deep down I'm not sure whether everyone is an artist, but certainly everyone is a narcissist. Everyone is looking at themselves."

Human Figure, an exhibition featuring Simon Yotsuya's dolls, among others from the Edo Era to the present day, will continue until March 3 at O Bijutsukan (3495-4040). An exhibition of more than 50 dolls produced by the École de Simon will be held March 7-12 at Kinokuniya Gallery, Shinjuku.