The impossibly beautiful model built a career on her lauded androgynous look, albeit as Andrej instead of Andreja.
Today, fashion website style.com published an interview with Andreja Pejic where she spoke about her transition and gender identity:
“I figured out who I was very early on — actually, at the age of 13, with the help of the Internet — so I knew that a transition, becoming a woman, was always something I needed to do. But it wasn’t possible at the time, and I put it off, and androgyny became a way of expressing my femininity without having to explain myself to people too much.”
The interview is, as expected, about as invasive as one concerning a celebrity’s transition could be. Far from being polite and reasonable concerning gender in general, the media has certainly bumbled about with Pejic in the past; in one CityTV interview during Toronto Fashion Week in 2011, a reporter started the interview saying how she feels like she should pull out the chair for Pejic, and scrutinized the model’s gender. That same article began, “One of the most in-demand models of women’s clothing isn’t a woman.”
The style.com interview, likewise, is fixated on the model’s sex reassignment surgery and focuses on that for the bulk of the interview. Pejic, thankfully, is both affable and eloquent, intricately explaining concepts of gender and identity:
When I first met you last year, you already seemed like a pretty confident individual. Do you feel more comfortable — or more you — since having the SRS?
I think from my teenage years, when I decided I needed to express my femininity, I was happy with the way I looked. But SRS is kind of the last part — it’s sort of the icing on the cake. It makes me feel freer than ever. Now I can stand naked in front of a mirror and really enjoy my reflection. And those personal moments are important.
But you’ve always been gorgeous. Did you not enjoy your reflection before?
Not fully naked.
They want a sob story, but there doesn’t seem to be one to be found. Have a little more style, Style, when you’re talking to the patron saint of beauty.
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