Trans* model Andreja Pejic makes history in Vogue spread

AUSTRALIA’S Andreja Pejic is being celebrated as the first trans* model to be profiled in an issue of fashion magazine Vogue.

In a feature article spread titled The New World, the 23-year-old model provides an insight into gender fluidity dominating fashion runways and issues of “Trans America” — dubbed “the frontier in gender politics”.

Pejic, who came out as a trans woman in last year and underwent gender-confirming surgery, also spoke of her distress from being raised as a boy during school and adolescence.

“Society doesn’t tell you that you can be trans*… I thought about being gay, but it didn’t fit,” Pejic said.

“I thought, try to be a boy and try to be normal.”

Born in Bosnia but raised in Melbourne, Pejic is also announced as the first trans* model to have secured significant cosmetics campaign deals, appearing this year as the face of Make Up For Ever.

She has also been widely praised for breaking down the barriers for trans* models, and as a role model for trans* individuals on a global scale.

“I want to share my story with the world because I think I have a social responsibility,” Pejic told People magazine last year.

“I hope that by being open about this, it becomes less of an issue.”‘

Pejic, who made her runway debut as a female during London Fashion Week in February 2015, has a history of androgynous modelling in both womenswear and menswear since being scouted in 2007.

She is also in the process of creating a documentary about her transition to womanhood, which started in her adolescence when she took synthetic, puberty-suppressing hormones in secret.

“I wanted to stop puberty in its early tracks, I was worried about my feet being too big, my hands being too big, my jawline being too strong,” Pejic told Vogue.

“There was definitely a lot of ‘oh, you’re going to lose what’s special about you. You’re not going to be interesting anymore. There are loads of pretty girls out there’.”

Nonetheless, Pejic said things are changing.

“There are just more categories now, it’s good,” she said.

“We’re finally figuring out that gender and sexuality are more complicated.”

(Main image: Photographed by Patrick Demarchelier, Vogue, May 2015)