Andrej Pejic on Sunday Night

neil barrett FW1112 backstage/sonny vandevelde

Gird your loins, Andrej Pejic fans. Next Sunday, on Australia's Seven Network, the first comprehensive television profile of Pejic will go to air on the Sunday Night program (6.30pm). A Sunday Night crew embedded themselves with Pejic during his most recent tour of fashion duty at the Paris mens shows - during which he walked for a number of designers, but was notably cast by Jean Paul Gaultier as James Blond and then the following week, as the traditional bride of Gaultier's haute couture show. From castings to fittings, photoshoots, backstage, front-of-house and interviews with some of the world's leading fashion commentators, it's going to be a fly-on-the-wall look at a pretty fascinating fashion moment. Sunday Night just ran an in-show promo at the end of its first show back on air tonight after the summer hiatus (video and screen grabs below). Relieved to finally be able to talk about this after several weeks of intense work.

As regular readers of this blog would know, in addition to freelance print work, I also work in current affairs television. With the permission of Pejic and his mother agency Chadwick, I took this idea to Sunday Night, knowing that a brilliant documentary opportunity in the mens shows was rapidly approaching. An hour-long program which does longform current affairs stories (anywhere up to 15-20 minutes apiece), I had confidence that Sunday Night would do this story justice.

I did not travel to Paris (and just to clarify, nor did I produce this story), but worked closely with the Sunday Night team - headed up by Walkley Award-winning producer Nick Farrow and reporter Rahni Sadler - engineering their filming access and interviews as they went. Take it from me, you haven't blagged your way into a fashion show until you've done it at short notice on behalf of a four-person camera crew 17,000kms from the action. 

Many thanks to Andrej, for allowing a camera crew in his face for almost ten days, Matt Anderson and Joseph Tenni from Chadwick, Arnaud Vanbleus from New Madison and Team Secret Squirrel - Sonny Vandevelde and Isaac Hindin-Miller, who provided some on-the-ground support. 

Looking forward to seeing the final result.  

 

screen grabs/sunday night

Andrej Pejic celebrated Australia Day on a Paris haute couture runway in a wedding dress

now fashion

While many Australians were celebrating our national day with a bbq, minutes ago Andrej Pejic just did something a little different: he walked in Jean Paul Gaultier's Spring/Summer 2011 haute couture show in Paris. Closed it in fact, as the traditional bride. Yes, a day after the designer finally unveiled his much-anticipated Spring/Summer 2011 ready-to-wear advertising campaign starring Pejic and Czech supermodel Karolina Kurkova and almost a week after Pejic closed Gaultier's mens Fall/Winter 2011/2012 show dressed as a woman, Gaultier and Pejic just made a little more gender-bending music together. And they may have just made fashion history together to boot. Givenchy deployed its muse and advertising face Lea T, a transsexual (and technically a pre-op transsexual) in the brand's most recent haute couture presentation. That was, however, a static display only, not a show. Frockwriter is not sure that any couturier/couturière has ever previously sent a man down his/her runway in womens' clothing. And certainly never in a wedding dress. The collection was inspired by British punks and French showgirls, with the models sporting mohawks and Pejic trailed by a highkicking cancan girl. There was no soundtrack, just the soft drawl of no less than French screen legend Catherine Deneuve reading out the names of the garments, one by one, with the models each carrying a corresponding number - the way they used to do it half a century ago, in the golden days of the couture. Below are what appear to be three recent backstage shots of Pejic taken by a French photographer - and possibly before this show. They were posted at the same time he was in hair and makeup. Vive la Liberté.  

all three images: mathieu berthemy

Trench coat glamour mafia: Andrej Pejic and Karolina Kurkova for Jean Paul Gaultier Spring/Summer 2011

A matter of days after Andrej Pejic strutted Jean Paul Gaultier's Autumn/Winter 2011/20112 menswear runway in Paris as both a man - and a woman - and twenty-four hours before the designer's feverishly-anticipated haute couture womenswear show, Gaultier's Spring/Summer 2011 campaign images starring Pejic and Czech supermodel Karolina Kurkova have finally landed. With the designer himself joining Twitter to excitedly unveil them. Shot by high profile photographic duo Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin, the campaign consists of two black and white images of Pejic and Kurkova, both in fishnet stockings and wearing matching trench coats from the Spring/Summer 2011 womens collection (as first revealed by Kurkova just before Christmas in a Tweet from the set). In one shot, they are kissing. Who's the prettier of the two though?

images: via TFS

Andrej Pejic is James Blond

sonny vandevelde

After a big London booking delayed his arrival in Milan earlier this week and only ultimately walking in one show there - Neil Barrett - Andrej Pejic finally made a spectacular entree to the Fall/Winter 2011/2012 Paris mens show season overnight at Jean Paul Gaultier's show. As both a man - and, surprise, surprise, also as a woman. Inspired by legendary British spook James Bond, the collection was opened by a pistol-packing macho model in a tuxedo. Pejic was second out, also in a tuxedo, but with the shirt louchely loosened to bare his chest and his signature platinum blond locks parted to the side, softly curled and tumbling down over one shoulder à la Veronica Lake. Thence followed a suite of other tuxedo-inspired looks, including some deconstructed tuxes, obviously a Gaultier trademark and yet more examples of the controversial "shuit", or men's shorts suit, which has been gaining popularity on the mens runways for the past few seasons. Presumably more in keeping with Bond's action sequences, a number of sportier ensembles also hit the runway, featuring sprayed-on motocross leggings teamed with glam, gilt bomber jackets and jean jackets festooned with metallic sequins. 

After a second exit in an all black trench coat, cigarette pants and shirt ensemble, teamed with sunglasses, Pejic closed the show in high heels and a fur gilet - fur a confirmed trend this mens' season - carrying a golden gun. He was greeted with a big kiss from Gaultier when the designer took his bow. Frockwriter's backstage sources report that Gaultier referred to Pejic as his "James Blond". 

Androgyny might be a big buzzword in fashion right now, but it's worth remembering that Gaultier has been flirting with the concept for the past 30 years. 

He first promoted the idea of men in skirts in 1985, later putting them in corsets and tutus and blended genders in numerous advertising campaigns. He even launched a unisex collection back in 1994. 

No surprise, then, that Gaultier was the first international designer to cast Pejic in a runway show - at the last Paris mens shows in June 2010. And then cast him alongside lookalike Czech supermodel Karolina Kurkova for his Spring/Summer 2011 advertising campaign, dressing them in one shot in identical trench coats from the womens' collection.

You could say the supremely androgynous Serbian Australian is Gaultier's dream model.  Stand by to see just where this collaboration might be heading next.

Meanwhile, Pejic's other confirmed bookings this week include today's Comme des Garçons show and Sunday's Paul Smith show.  

all three photos above: sonny vandevelde

 

remaining shots: getty via daylife

Andrej Pejic: Shooting Jean Paul Gaultier's Spring/Summer 2011 campaign with Karolina Kurkova, rattling rednecks from Sydney to Serbia

karolina kurkova's facebook

Overnight Czech supermodel Karolina Kurkova published a shot of herself and a Jean Paul Gaultier Spring/Summer 2011 campaign co-star on Facebook and the cat is out of the bag and all over the net. Australia’s Andrej Pejic is also in the campaign. That’s the second big international SS11 campaign booked by Pejic to which frockwriter referred in our post on Tuesday. It is unclear at this stage if the JPG campaign features any other models beyond Kurkova and Pejic. But both do look to be wearing similar pleated trench coats – which were prominently featured in Gaultier’s SS11 womenswear show in Paris in October. The garment does not, however, appear anywhere in Gaultier’s mens SS11 collection, which was shown in Paris in June and which, as you may recall, Pejic in fact walked. What conclusion can we draw from this? That, unless Kurkova posted a staged teaser shot, Pejic may well be modelling womenswear in this campaign. Stop the press. 

Since he first popped up on the international fashion radar at the Paris mens' shows in June, much ink - not to mention photoshoot styling - has been dedicated to Pejic's distinctive androgynous look.

In Jan Breen Burns' recent story in The Age, 'Beautiful Boys', Matthew Anderson at Chadwick, Pejic's mother agency, suggested that the agency's new star could be at the vanguard of a whole new "femiman" trend.
 

On Wednesday, News Limited’s newspapers went ballistic on the Pejic story. The same story ran in multiple interstate editions – and even as the main shot on the front page of News Limited's online news portal news.com.au, together the headline, “Hang on - Dude looks like a lady.... Melbourne teenager is the most beautiful boy in the world”.
 

The story prompted almost 100 comments, largely hostile towards Pejic – describing him as "flat out just too weird”, “ridiculous and laughable”, “hideous”, “disgusting” and “queer”. That's what was actually published. You can only imagine what wasn't cleared.
 

A very similar reaction, in other words, to that prompted by a recent Serbian television story on Pejic, after a Serbian news crew followed Pejic around his grandmother’s rural village over the northern hemisphere summer and the reporter canvassed opinion from some of the village locals.

The News Limited backlash prompted quite some buzz on Twitter and at least two blog posts which lamented Australia’s intolerance towards anyone who is “different”– and discussed the reemergence of androgyny in fashion.

Pejic, meanwhile, is laughing all the way to the bank. 

mert + marcus for vogue paris via TFS

Frockwriter previously noted how unusual Pejic's career trajectory has been for an emerging Australian model: since June he has shot editorials for three international editions of Vogue, including two of the most prestigious fashion titles in the world (Vogue Paris and Vogue Italia). 

Also out-of-the-ordinary: the fact that he keeps getting buddied up with the world’s most high-profile female models.
 

Kurkova is one of the biggest names in the modelling business. 

Ranked by Forbes in 2008 as the sixth highest model earning model, earning an estimated US$5million in the preceding 12 months, she slipped off Forbes’ more recent lists after her contract with Victoria’s Secret expired. Kurkova was back in the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show this year, nevertheless, and she continues to be one of modelling’s biggest earners. Hence her models.com rankings in the “Money Girls” (#7) and “Top Sexiest Models” (#19) lists. 

In the September issue of Vogue Paris, Pejic was photographed alongside 14 year-old Daphne Groeneveld (also Malgosia Bela and Lea T). Groeneveld, who currently features on the magazine's December cover, was one of the biggest new modelling names to emerge in 2010. 

vogue italia/z fashion blog via TFS

In the November issue of Vogue Italia, Pejic was cast by high profile photographer Steven Meisel to appear alongside models.com’s world number two Freja Beha Erichsen, together with Iselin Steiro and Iris Strubegger (equal #9). 

In Pejic's mystery second SS11 ad campaign - for an equally big brand whose name we can't yet reveal - he was shot alongside lookalike Latvian supermodel Ginta Lapina, yet another of the industry’s hottest new faces, who has advertising campaigns for Yves Saint Laurent and Miu Miu under her belt.

Beth Ditto backstage at Jean Paul Gaultier - Spring/Summer 2011

jean paul gaultier SS11 backstage/steve wood

Jean Paul Gaultier is no stranger to runway diversity, having sent arguably the world's most high profile plus size model, American Crystal Renn, down his Spring/Summer 2006 runway in October 2005. The following year, plus-sized Paris-based American actor Velvet d'Amour made her Gaultier appearance (here is the interview I did with her at the time). Yesterday Gaultier upped the plus size ante by having no less than three plus size models on his Spring/Summer 2011 runway in Paris: Renn, Marquita Pring and Beth Ditto, the frontwoman of US indie rock outfit Gossip, who opened the show and later delivered an a cappella performance. A photographer mate, the inimitable Steve Wood, just zipped me these backstage shots of Ditto with Gaultier and some other members of his show cast, including Sasha Pivovarova and Eliza Cummins (but no sign of former Gaultier face Tallulah Morton, who is in Paris at the moment).  

Check WWD for images of the entire collection: a madcap mish-mash of  leather biker jackets, piped blazers and hotpants; Black Rats-like ruched leggings; harem pants in Gaultier's trademark sailor stripes; deconstructed trenches; one very Abba-worthy white jumpsuit and 3D graphic prints - the latter a cute take on the digital print uber trend. 

Reviews keep referring to Joan Jett as an influence for the spiky glam mullet wigs, but to frockwriter's eye they have early 70s Ziggy Stardust written all over them - with the collection's pagoda shoulders, jumpsuits and unitards echoing Bowie's Kansai Yamamoto costumes during the same period. 

With the New York Dolls popping up as muses for Marc Jacobs' own Seventies-nosed collection, we look forward to seeing the forthcoming fashion editorials that this season inspires.   

all images: supplied to frockwriter by steve wood

Ajak Deng: Civil war survivor, aspiring supermodel, breadwinner for eight

david jones SS1011 backstage

Frockwriter was preoccupied with a fulltime gig during the Fall/Winter 2010/2011 season, so we missed quite a bit of news. Including two new rising Australian modelling stars, Adelaide’s Emily Wake and Melbourne’s Ajak Deng. We did include one mention of Deng in our preliminary SS10 Australian model wrap just after New York Fashion Week, her first international show season, in which she did just a handful of New York shows (and we originally got her surname wrong*). However it was during the Fall/Winter 2010/2011 shows in February and March when Deng really grabbed the industry’s attention, walking in over 20 shows. These included blue chip names such as Lanvin, Givenchy, Jean Paul Gaultier and Chloe – the first black girl to walk the latter’s runway in nine seasons in fact, prompting New York Magazine to ask in June, “Could Ajak Deng be the next Alek Wek?”. Like Wek, Deng is a Sudanese refugee. But while Wek’s family fled the war-torn African nation for the UK, Deng’s family settled in Melbourne in 2004 – among an estimated 23,000 Sudanese refugees who arrived in Australia from 2002-2007. Sixty-two percent are aged 24 and younger and 45percent of the settlers are believed to be female. Like Wek’s story – which Wek recounted in her autobiography in 2007 – Deng’s story is remarkable. The second of eight children, Deng lost her mother to malaria at the age of 12 while living in a Kenyan refugee camp and took charge of her infant sister. Three years ago her father moved back to Sudan and her stepmother left to join him. Since she was 16, Deng has been financially responsible for her seven siblings.  

david jones SS1011

Interestingly, Deng is the second Australian model with a refugee background to break through on the international fashion stage this year. 

Andrej Pejic’s family fled war-torn Bosnia for Australia in the 1990s, coincidentally also settling in Melbourne. After a successful Paris menswear season in July, Pejic prominently features in a 16-page editorial in this month’s Vogue Paris.  

(top to bottom) lanvin FW1011, chloe FW1011, valentino haute couture FW1011/all images style.com

However Deng is by no means the only Sudanese model working in this market.

Over the past eight years a number of Sudanese refugees have emerged on Australian runways at Australian Fashion Week, the biannual David Jones and Myer shows, L’Oréal Melbourne Fashion Festival and Melbourne Spring Fashion Week. * Confusingly, their first names tend to begin with the letter “A” and there was even another Ajak Deng modelling at one point, prompting Deng’s mother agency FRM Model Management to initially change her name to “Angelique”. 

The Sudanese Australian fashion contingent includes Ajak Nyariel; Atong Tulba; Akuol Ding; cousins Akeer Chut-Deng, Atong Maluck and Abang Athow and now also Deng’s 18 year-old sister Zahara, who began modelling two months ago, also repped by FRM.

Deng was signed to IMG Models in New York last year and now features on its prestigious main Womens board, as opposed to the "Development" board. 

Since her breakthrough season earlier this year, she walked in several Resort 2011 shows in New York in June and several haute couture shows in Paris in July - notably Valentino. She also booked the Spring/Summer 2010 campaign for Benetton, Topshop’s Fall/Winter 2010/2011 campaign and has just shot for Banana Republic and Nordstrom. She was also featured in the controversial ‘Let’s Get Lost’ editorial spread in Interview magazine in June, alongside a black cast and one white model. Deng told New York Magazine that she didn't think there were any "racial overtones". 

But Deng hasn’t been quite so diplomatic when describing her modelling experiences in the Australian market. 

Although very grateful for the opportunities that life in Australia has afforded her family - "In Sudan, all this would have been impossible. It is just amazing" she told The Herald Sun – Deng recently told Vogue Italia that she believes she has experienced discrimination on modelling jobs in Australia.

In a Vogue Italia video interview with former model Bethann Hardison, the founder of Bethan Management, co-founder of the Black Girls Coalition and an advocate for women of colour in the modelling business, Deng reported that she has been told by some Australian fashion players:

“Sorry you’ve come such a long way, but we don’t use black girls”. 

Considering that she has been working for two years essentially part-time while she finished school, Deng’s Australian body of work nevertheless embraces three David Jones shows, the L’Oréal Melbourne Fashion Festival, Melbourne Spring Fashion Week, New Zealand Fashion Week, advertising campaigns for Mimco, Davenport, Bardot and Leluu and editorials in New Zealand’s Pulp and Black magazines and the Australia titles Vice and Cream. 

No editorial, however, in any mainstream fashion publication and no Rosemount Australian Fashion Week. Why no RAFW? According to FRM, last year’s event clashed with her school timetable and although Deng was booked to work at RAFW this year, the Topshop job in London came through at the last minute and took priority. 

The Spring/Summer 2011 season commences next Thursday in New York. Alongside numerous other Australian models, Deng is there attending castings. Frockwriter looks forward to seeing her build on her success. 

I caught up with Deng at the David Jones Spring/Summer 2010/2011 show in Sydney on August 3rd. She had just arrived that morning on a flight from the US, where she had been shooting the Banana Republic campaign. It was a fairly noisy background and the sound in places in patchy.




 

jean paul gaultier FW1011/style.com

I read that you have been responsible for your seven brothers and sisters for the past three years. How could you possibly look after them at the age of 16 when you were still in school?
Ajak Deng: Well when I was in highschool, I was getting payments from Centrelink and I was being paid as a parent for my little sister and my little brother. Now .... she’s eight years old, I was told ‘Oh well we’re not going to pay you as a parent, but we’ll pay you as a worker’. As a carer.

How old are your brothers and sisters?
They’re 18, 16, 15, 12, 10 and eight years old. The oldest is 21. But he’s not really doing anything. Under me there are six.

But you’re responsible for everyone?
Yeah.

So how do you do that with your modelling income?
If I have anything then I have to spend it on them and the house but at the moment I don’t have anything because I’m kind of running around the world.

It’s a lot of responsibility for a 19 year-old. Have you met any other models in similar situations?
No, all of them are pretty much responsible for their own money. When they get paid, they go shopping, they buy that and that. I’m like, I can’t do that. Instead of wasting all my money on shopping, I’ve got got to make sure that I...my family. I might keep a tiny little bit to spoil myself.

In the Vogue Italia interview with Bethann Hardison, you mentioned problems you had working as a model in Australia.
I said, ‘I don’t want to think about it as a hard industry, I just want to go out there and do my thing’. A lot of people think ‘Oh I’m a black model, this is going to be impossible’. For me, I don’t want to think like it is impossible. There’s nothing impossible, as long as you put yourself out there.

You told Hardison that Australian fashion industry figure/s had told you, “Sorry they sent you all the way here, we don’t work with black models”. Which shows are you talking about? Do you remember any names? I only did one show last year, during Melbourne Fashion Week. I only got to do one show last year.

Do you think Australians are racist? You have otherwise obviously been welcomed into Australia as a refugee.
We’ve been welcomed but at the same time, once you try to do something good it’s just.. nobody is really accepting you. They’re just like... Oh yeah, like ‘Good luck’. But they don’t welcome you. Like for example when you’re doing a show, [and people are] taking pictures, they don’t really bother to take a picture of a black model. Like a closeup makeup [portrait]. They don’t do that. Whereas in New York, they do that, they don’t mind. They take a photo of any girl with her makeup on. Whereas here no, the girls they know, they take a picture of those girls and they just leave you out. They don’t really care. They walk past you and nobody really cares. I don’t really mind about that as long as I’m doing the show.

You have been having some tremendous success overseas. Amusingly, a lot of people can’t seem to help commenting on the length of your legs.
Everybody says that. They’re like, ‘Damn, those legs are long!’

Do many people make comparisons to Alek Wek?
Trust me, over 200 people in Europe or in Paris would think I’m always Alek Wek. I walk down the street and [it’s like] ‘Oh my God, are you Alek Wek?’ I’m like, ‘I’m not her but thank you very much’. She’s a supermodel, it’s great to be compared to her. But I don’t really mind.

Has Alek Wek been an inspiration for you?
Yeah, very much so.

How did you start modelling? Were you scouted?
No, I actually joined modelling school. Tanya Powell. I did Tanya Powell for like two weeks and after that I got my little photos together, so I went to FRM. And I asked them, I want to be a model. And they wanted to charge me.... I didn’t have much money after modelling school. So I joined this [other] guy as my personal manager... After New Zealand Fashion Week, Melbourne and various jobs that I did that were paying well.... he kind of just ripped me off and changed his address and phone... Totally just abandoned me. So he hasn’t paid me my money, took my portfolio, changed his address, is nowhere to be found.

How much money does he owe you?
Around $8000. He did this to three models.

Who looks after your brothers and sisters when you’re not there?
My step mum [according to FRM she travels backwards and forwards from the Sudan]. I hope she’s not going to leave again because if she leaves, I can’t go back to work.

Well congratulations. You are doing incredibly well – at the same time facing challenges that few, if any, other models have to face.
It’s crazy. When I travel and I go around the world, I’m like, ‘What am I doing here and where do I go from here?’ It’s totally different from Melbourne. But I’ve been to like four or five countries already so far,  so I’m like ‘Wow, that was good - in less than eight months’.

 

Jean Paul Gaultier's Perla

Turbans were piled high, shoulder pads took on lives of their own – right down to the elbow - and Dita von Teese stripped down to a black beaded corset, thong and suspenders on the runway – all to promote, presumably, a new collaboration between Jean Paul Gaultier and Italian luxury lingerie brand La Perla. Call it Marlene Dietrich with multiple personality disorder, Gaultier’s haute couture offerings, just off the runway in Paris, were a mixed bag of Forties Hollywood glamour, Lido showgirl and Mortitia Addams. As with Dior’s floral extravaganza on Monday, colours were intense, from poison green to chartreuse, cobalt blue and orchid. It now remains to be seen which contemporary Hollywood icons have the chutzpah to pull these looks off on the red carpet. Head to Now Fashion to see the complete collection.

Andrej Pejic mixes it up at Jean Paul Gaultier

jean paul gaultier SS11/style.com

Who was the intriguing, androgynous blonde at Jean Paul Gaultier’s Spring/Summer 2011 menswear show in Paris overnight? Melbourne’s Andrej Pejic, that’s who. Frockwriter knew it would not be long before Pejic appeared on a major runway and there he is in three outfits at JPG. Update: Pejic reports that he will also be doing John Galliano's show today. Since first popping up on our radar at Rosemount Australian Fashion Week last year, as reported by frockwriter, Pejic shot a 14 page editorial for Australia’s RUSSH magazine and headed to London, where the 18 year-old was snapped up by Storm Management. Pejic, whose mother agency in Australia is Chadwicks, is now repped by New Madison in Paris and I Love Models Management in Milan and has shot for Dazed + Confused Japan (see below), London-based magazines Libertine and Wonderland and Martyn Bal. Stand by for what could be his biggest career break to date: editorial (including a cover try) just shot by a major international photographic duo for the September edition of a major international fashion title.

Pejic emerges on the international stage at a moment when androgyny has never been more topical - and not just in fashion.

Gaultier first proposed the idea of western men in skirts in the 1980s - two decades before Marc Jacobs began kitting himself out in his now signature kilt. Beyond Scotland, of course, men in several other cultures wear skirt-like garments.

But that was definitely a dress from his women's collection in which Jacobs put male model Cole Mohr for his Marc by Marc Jacob Fall/Winter 2008/2009 campaign - some believe inspired by Jacobs' defacto muse, Manila-based blogger Bryanboy, one of several male fashion identities who blend gender stereotypes with their personal mens/womens fashion mix.

Sydney-based label Chronicles of Never is one of several labels offering unisex collections.

On a far more serious note, last month at the inaugural TEDx Sydney summit, intersex rights activist Gina Wilson gave a moving presentation about the challenges and discrimination faced by the estimated 1.7percent of the population who are born defying traditional male/female sexual stereotypes.

And Australia's own Hollywood superstar, Nicole Kidman, is set to star in a film about Lili Elbe, née Einar Wegener, one of the first known recipients of male-to-female sex reassignment surgery. Not only is Kidman playing Elbe, she is also producing it. It's an interesting career choice for Kidman, who would undoubtedly be well aware of the longstanding urban myth that claims she was born a hermaphrodite.


photo credits:
dazed + confused japan/mens model talk 
storm via mens model talk
wonderland/mens fashionscapes