Transgender model Andreja Pejic in a Bonds lingerie campaign – is the revolution here?

| Elfy Scott | Global | The Guardian 7/3/19 11'45

Transgender model Andreja

Pejić in a Bonds lingerie
campaign 5 is the revolution
here?
Elfy Scott
Wed 6 Mar 2019
23.33 GMT
She has never felt accepted like other Australian darlings and
admits to being a ‘little hurt’ by that

Andreja Pejić in her first major Australian campaign for Bonds.

E
ven those with their fingers firmly off the fashion pulse may recognise Andreja
Pejić. Standing at six foot two with ice-blonde hair, a striking hawkish gaze, and
frankly, unnecessarily long legs, Pejić appears on the surface to be the archetypal
supermodel (add in her eastern European lilt and this impression becomes
positively cartoonish). However, for somebody who so assuredly conforms to the
mould, as a transwoman Pejić has also done a hell of a lot to break it.

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Transgender model Andreja Pejic in a Bonds lingerie campaign – is the revolution here? | Elfy Scott | Global | The Guardian 7/3/19 11'45

The first-generation Bosnian-Australian became an androgynous fashion icon in 2011 after

walking both the men’s and women’s show for Jean Paul Gaultier at Paris fashion week. She
has since become the first openly-trans model to be profiled for Vogue and one of the first
trans models to secure a major cosmetics campaign when she modelled for Make Up Forever
in 2015.

However Pejić’s career has consisted almost exclusively of international exploits and she
told me that up until this point, she has never found any significant success in the
Australian fashion industry.

“I can’t say I’ve worked a lot in Australia – and if I’m being completely honest, I was a little
bit hurt by that because Australia is my home,” she said.

“I never really felt accepted in the Australian advertising market as much as the other
Australian darlings but, you know, I was different and that’s how it is when you’re a bit
different.”

Photograph: Supplied

It doesn’t shock me to hear this. As a short (relatively speaking) ethnic model who has
worked in the Australian industry for over six years, I’ve witnessed firsthand the
unwillingness of most brands to budge from the slim, Caucasian beach aesthetic that has
dominated our nation’s beauty ideals since the dawn of our, well, beach-bound whiteness.

The first few years of my career were defined by hours in casting rooms milling about as
what I’ve come to refer to as the “guilt call” – the single brown girl that brands could pretend
to consider as a legitimate option while never actually landing the job. This alienating
feeling has thankfully become less and less common as casting rooms in Sydney have filled
up with more diverse faces over the past two years.

Even while the understanding of beauty in Australian fashion is becoming more progressive,
with the inclusion of more models from diverse ethnic backgrounds in large campaigns and
the inclusion of the first plus-size model on the runway of Australia’s Mercedes Benz
fashion week last year (the first! In 2018!), the conversation regarding the inclusion of trans
or non-binary models has remained remarkably quiet.

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Transgender model Andreja Pejic in a Bonds lingerie campaign – is the revolution here? | Elfy Scott | Global | The Guardian 7/3/19 11'45

That is why it is surprising and heartening to hear that underwear brand Bonds have hired
Pejić to front their latest campaign for new line, Intimately. This is only the second lingerie
advertising that Pejić has landed and she hopes that being hired by such a well-known
Australian company is the first swell in a changing tide that will bring her home to work
more frequently.

Models, despite their reputation for being rather vapid and ridiculous, serve an important
cultural purpose; for a person to conceptualise their own beauty, they need a point of
reference in the world, and fashion can provide that framework. Pejić believes that it is the
job of fashion to “be plugged in and see what’s happening in the world”. By leading a major
advertising campaign – for underwear nonetheless – Pejić is hopeful that she can assume the
position of a role model for young trans people.

“I do think we [models] have a purpose to serve and I hope that young people can gain some
courage from what I’ve done. It’s not easy to grow up different, it’s certainly not easy to
grow up trans,” she said.

Photograph: P/Supplied

However, Pejić is careful to avoid grandiosity when discussing fashion as a vehicle for social

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Transgender model Andreja Pejic in a Bonds lingerie campaign – is the revolution here? | Elfy Scott | Global | The Guardian 7/3/19 11'45

change and doesn’t believe it is the singular source of the revolution when it comes to
changing wider societal attitudes towards the trans community.

“I’ve always been very very patient and will continue to be and I want to keep just doing my
job and keep inspiring and hopefully that will mean something for culture in general.”

It is worth noting in an industry so blatantly motivated by commercial interests that the

beginning of the revolution may already be here. Fashion reflects what surrounds it and
changes when the world does. Models used in Australian advertising up to this point have
been so homogenously white, slim and cisgender because brands assumed they were selling
to a socially conservative audience that wanted to see white, slim and cisgender bodies and
this is simply no longer the case.

Ultimately, Pejić believes that fashion can evade the constraints of outdated social
hierarchies with a simplification of who we construe as beautiful.

“It should be somebody who walks into a room and you think, ‘Oh this person is special’. I
don’t think it should always be a person that’s a size zero or a size two – or size 11. There’s a
million ways of being special.”

Elfy Scott is a journalist and writer based in Sydney

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Topics
Australian fashion
Opinion
Models
Transgender
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