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Fashion takes on new roles: Andrej Pejic between him and her
"Who's the blonde girl in the bridal gown?", It rang through to Jean-Paul Gaultier's haute couture collection last January. Platinum-blonde hair, cheekbones by Kate Moss and a beauty mark à la Cindy Crawford, 1, 83 meters and 19 years young - no wonder Andrej Pejic is the "Model of the Moment".
Andrej Pejic is a man who presents both menswear and womenswear, reshaping the clichés of fashion with just a fine touch of distinction between Andrej Pejic from A-League Karolinas, Kates & Co. So after the role-reversing eighties and androgynous nineties, is the 21st century genderless?
Born in Bosnia, raised in Serbia, emigrated to Australia at the age of eight, 19-year-old Andrej Pejic was not a stone's throw from Mama's wardrobe to the haute couture catwalks in Paris. In 2008, an agent approached him, invited him to the casting as a wife, and found him even more interesting as a man. Andrej Pejic is not the only super androgynous model: the transsexual Lea T. is Givenchy-muse and - Werbegesicht, David Chiang was called by Karl Lagerfeld a "very pretty Chinese girl". But representative of the new, genderless model, which in the US is called only "femiman", is Andrej Pejic.
Hilary Alexander, fashion director of The Daily Telegraph, calls him "Bombshell-without-boobs, " Andrej Pejic became the first man in "FHM's 100 Sexiest Women in the World 2011". With rank 98 he even landed just one rank behind Bar Refaeli . The question "When is a man a man?" does not stand today anymore. H & M's latest "Fashion Against Aids" line is a unisex collection, Rei Kawakubo has been designing for "Comme des Garcons" for a long time without gender and the German Patrick Mohr designs for an entire man-woman.
Only Andrej Pejic himself knows the difference. "Women's fashion is much more demanding, " he says in an interview with ZEIT magazine, "It all depends on how you move, how to move around, and on men's shows you just have to start walking."
Andrej Pejic's career highlights:
In 2008 Andrej Pejic starts his modeling career in Australia
In 2010 Andrej Pejic signs the contract with Storm Models. In the same year he appears in the Japanese Vogue Hommes, Vogue editorials, shot by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott and Steven Meisel, and runs for Jean-Paul Gaultier, John Galliano, Paul Smith and Raf Simons
2011 Andrej Pejic is the face of Marc by Marc Jacobs, he smooches for the Gaultier campaign with Karolina Kurkova and runs again at the Paris Couture Shows
