French fashion designer Jean Paul Gaultier has chosen Andrej Pejic, an androgynous-looking male model with long platinum blonde hair and feminine features, to pose for his spring-summer advertising campaign, reports Vogue.
The male model is dressed as a woman in the campaign, which features black and white photographs of his embrace with Czech supermodel Karolina Kurkova. The campaign was shot by Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin. This year’s fashion trend is gender confusion, a trend initiated by Riccardo Tisci, who has made the top transsexual model Leah T. his muse for several seasons.
The 19-year- old Serbian Australian model Andrej Pejic has emerged as a poster boy for fashion androgyny. Pejic was a hit during the last week of men’s fashion for autumn -winter 2011-2012 and has modeled for several brands, including John Galliano, Paul Smith and Comme des Garcons.
He has walked the runway on several occasions for Jean Paul Gaultier, in both female and male fashions, and recently closed the haute couture 2011 spring-summer show wearing a wedding dress layered with transparent veils.
Gaultier is known for using unconventional models for his shows, including older men, full-figured women, pierced and heavily tattooed models, and playing with traditional gender roles.
In 1985 he introduced man-skirts, and produced sculptured costumes for Madonna during the nineties, starting with her infamous cone-bra for her 1990 Blond Ambition Tour, and designed the wardrobe for her 2006 Confessions Tour. He’s also well-known for his exhibit in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art known as Bravehearts — Men in Skirts.