Andrej Pejic on Sunday Night

neil barrett FW1112 backstage/sonny vandevelde

Gird your loins, Andrej Pejic fans. Next Sunday, on Australia's Seven Network, the first comprehensive television profile of Pejic will go to air on the Sunday Night program (6.30pm). A Sunday Night crew embedded themselves with Pejic during his most recent tour of fashion duty at the Paris mens shows - during which he walked for a number of designers, but was notably cast by Jean Paul Gaultier as James Blond and then the following week, as the traditional bride of Gaultier's haute couture show. From castings to fittings, photoshoots, backstage, front-of-house and interviews with some of the world's leading fashion commentators, it's going to be a fly-on-the-wall look at a pretty fascinating fashion moment. Sunday Night just ran an in-show promo at the end of its first show back on air tonight after the summer hiatus (video and screen grabs below). Relieved to finally be able to talk about this after several weeks of intense work.

As regular readers of this blog would know, in addition to freelance print work, I also work in current affairs television. With the permission of Pejic and his mother agency Chadwick, I took this idea to Sunday Night, knowing that a brilliant documentary opportunity in the mens shows was rapidly approaching. An hour-long program which does longform current affairs stories (anywhere up to 15-20 minutes apiece), I had confidence that Sunday Night would do this story justice.

I did not travel to Paris (and just to clarify, nor did I produce this story), but worked closely with the Sunday Night team - headed up by Walkley Award-winning producer Nick Farrow and reporter Rahni Sadler - engineering their filming access and interviews as they went. Take it from me, you haven't blagged your way into a fashion show until you've done it at short notice on behalf of a four-person camera crew 17,000kms from the action. 

Many thanks to Andrej, for allowing a camera crew in his face for almost ten days, Matt Anderson and Joseph Tenni from Chadwick, Arnaud Vanbleus from New Madison and Team Secret Squirrel - Sonny Vandevelde and Isaac Hindin-Miller, who provided some on-the-ground support. 

Looking forward to seeing the final result.  

 

screen grabs/sunday night