Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Pejic in Depth


"Male Model of the Year"
New York Magazine

The Australian super-star male model has once again been the subject of an extended article by one of the world's most influential  magazines. He had recently been interviewed by Time Magazine (I published a link to the complete article: Pejic in Time) about his continual shifting between menswear and womenswear.

In an even more insightful feature, the androgynous looking Pejic, who ranked as the 98th sexiest woman in the world, is now acclaimed, by a no lesser periodical, The New York Magazine, as "the prettiest boy in the world" and as "Male model of the year". 

The fact that such a title is bestowed upon a model who openly defies conventional gender-barriers, one that, for me at least, personifies the very concept of an evolved, open-minded New-Male, is a real symbol of our ever-changing times, typifying the gradual but uninterrupted gender-role shift in our modern society, which is finally accepting beauty, refinement, glamor and delicacy as legitimate qualities in a man.


Photography Valérie Belin
Hair David Martinez 
Makeup Odile Subra
Clothing Gaspard Yurkievich

The story opens with as couple of anecdotes which exemplify the identity slips and confusions that surround his daily life, as he is often taken for a gorgeous female model.

“I guess professionally I’ve left my gender open to artistic interpretation”

After that, we get acquainted with the hardships of his early life, since he was born in Tuzla, Bosnia, several months before the start of the Bosnian war. 

His family re-settled as refugees in Melbourne, Australia, when, at age 13, he decided to dye his hair, wear makeup, and start experimenting with his looks. 

"I never did drag or anything like that. It was always that I wanted to be pretty, to look beautiful, as a girl would want to.”


Pejic displaying Gaultier's much acclaimed wedding dress.


“In this society, if a man is called a woman, that’s the biggest insult he could get. Is that because women are considered something less?”

The extended interview in five chapters, a "must read" for all of Andrej's fans around the world, ends up with some inevitable questions: "would he ever consider a sex change?"
 It also addresses some issues such as all those sweet-faced copycats with peroxide hair, and his eventual retirement from the fickle and ever-changing world of fashion. 
What were his answers? W
ell... check it out by yourselves: 
Here's the LINK

Related

Recent posts about Andrej


Link to the Time article about Pejic



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