19-year-old Andrej Pejic was discovered by a modelling scout while working at McDonald’s and has since risen to the top of the fashion industry with his remarkable androgynous look. He has modelled both male and female lines of designers such as Jean Paul Gaultier, Givenchy and Jeremy Scott, to name a few.
Earlier this month, Barnes & Noble censored Andrej’s cover of Dossier, saying “the model is young, and it could be deemed as a naked female.”
The Serbian-born model, who says he’s comfortable expressing both his masculine and feminine traits, has spoken about the controversy with New York magazine. “I think the question really isn’t the gender of the person on the cover, it’s whether it’s porn or it’s art,” he explained. “And clearly, it’s art, so art really should not be censored in a democratic society.”
Luckily, he has a sense of humour about the whole debate. “I have just been named the 98th sexiest woman in the world,” he added. “So it makes it a little confusing for them.”
I’m impressed by how well he’s handling himself. I can’t say I’d be so graceful under the same scrutiny. Just ask my editor, Robin Perelle, how thrilled I was about the last picture in my column. *cough*two chins*cough*. If some bullshit corporation tried to censor my entire body, including my two chins, I’d probably be throwing my BlackBerry at them faster than Oprah could call Naomi Campbell a “petulant diva.”
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