Andrej Pejic

carbon copy cover magazine.

Über famous androgynous runway model, Bosnian-born 20-year-old Andrej Pejic, admits that it’s not that easy to fit in with the girls in the fashion world. Of course he’s getting a lot of great campaigns and being featured in multiple glossy mags (like ours, October 2011, ‘Pushing The Identity Boundaries: Fashion’s Extraordinary New Faces’, pg. 76). Yet, it’s not all fun and games in the world of fashion.

2011 has been nothing if not Andrej Pejic's year in fashion. The Bosnian-born, Australian model strut his (oh yes, his) way into fame on Parisian couturier Jean Paul Gaultier's runway, which for Spring 2011 featured Pejic in the collection's finale bridal gown. Since his debut, the model's immaculate Serbo-Croatian features have been seen everywhere—on covers for Dossier and New York magazines, in spreads for French, Italian, and Japanese Vogue, and in campaigns for Marc Jacobs and Jean Paul Gaultier.
Pejic makes his latest splash as one of Out magazine's four cover subjects for the Out100, an annual spotlight on the year's 100 most compelling people in the LGBT community. Honoring him as the "Stylemaker of the Year," Pejic's cover recreates an iconic July 1956 Vogue cover shot by Irving Penn. In a year that heralded equal marriage rights in New York State, the model's veil-wrapped head and rose-studded hair references the ongoing debate across the country over same-sex marriage. And if anyone understands the struggle to be accepted simply as you are, it's Pejic. "The truth is I have to work twice as hard to be taken seriously," he told the magazine. Head over to Out.com to see Pejic's spread and to check out the rest of the year's lineup. —Phillip B. Crook