When Andrej Pejic met David Bowie

via david bowie's facebook

And now to the big Andrej Pejic news to which we alluded on Friday. No, not his fake wedding at a Las Vegas Pop Up Chapel, a new music video in which Pejic has a rather significant cameo role. Three years after Pejic channelled David Bowie for his first major international fashion editorial in Vogue Paris, fashion's androgynous superstar has teamed up with the original gender bender himself for Bowie's new single The Stars (Are Out Tonight). 

Andrej Pejic's Pop Up wedding

via bullshit_be_mine's instagram

Well we've seen him in enough wedding dresses. On November 19 last year, a fortnight after Andrej Pejic was, amusingly, banned by the Victoria Racing Club from wearing a Princess Beatrice tribute hat to the Melboune Cup Carnival - telling frockwriter that he intended to "save the vagina hat for my wedding" - he changed his Facebook relationship status to "engaged" to his boyfriend of the past year, Rembrandt 'Remy' Duran. "It's a joke....for now" Pejic told us at the time. Now he's taken it one step further.

Frockwriter's Top 10 posts of 2012

We usually flag the top posts of the previous 12 months on Frockwriter’s July 4 birthday each year. This year we opted instead to focus on some of the challenges – and frustrations - of trying to maintain an independent news blog, whilst avoiding getting sucked into the vortex of the blogger gravy train. So here is a list of our top stories for 2012, rated by traffic. The year’s number one post, Close encounters of the KL kind – which attracted over 20,000 hits - is incidentally also one of the top posts in this blog's four and a half year history. It's also a story on which we personally received considerable feedback, from people who contacted us to say how much they enjoyed reading it. Not bad for a post that we originally hesitated publishing at all, because of its length and potential TLDR factor – “too long didn’t read” being the mantra of many when confronted with longform pieces on the net.

The Victoria Racing Club imposes a hatwa on Andrej Pejic's Princess Beatrice tribute

suzanne carbone via the age

Well, well, well. In today's update about our post on Andrej Pejic's planned ensemble for Crown Oaks Day at Flemington, we spoke to everyone other than Melbourne milliner Kerrie Stanley. We spoke to Pejic, his mum, his agent and even designer Arthur Galan, asking why he was en route to the races in a different jacket and hat than originally planned. "He had a few different options" offered agent Matthew Anderson. "The hat didn't turn up in time" said Pejic. Had we managed to also reach Stanley, then perhaps we might have learned a little earlier on about the intriguing, last-minute hatwa that was imposed by the Victoria Racing Club on Pejic, Stanley and the Swisse Vitamins marquee which was hosting him. Why? Hilariously, so as not to offend Treacy - who was down at Flemington for the second consecutive year as the VRC's International Style Ambassador. Apparently the VRC and Philip Treacy may have had a humour bypass.  

Andrej Pejic is wearing a trouser suit to Ladies Day

andrej pejic at flemington 08/11/12 via kim wilson's instagram

What with all the high-profilers in town for Melbourne's Spring Racing Carnival, wheeling in favours from their internationally-renowed creative mates - Stephen Jones and L'Wren Scott kitted out Nicole Kidman for Derby Day and Bruce Oldfield and Philip Treacy dressed the Duchess of Cornwall for the Melbourne Cup - some local outfitters may be feeling a little upstaged at the moment. But Andrej Pejic is supporting the home team with his outfit for tomorrow's Crown Oaks Day at Flemington, aka Ladies Day. (See update, below)

If the shoe fits

andrej pejic models chris benz SS12 via sight management studio

We all talk – a great deal – about the sizes of the bodies of fashion models. The sizes of their feet, however, rarely come up for discussion. What an interesting topic of conversation it proved to be when we puffed this week's Anmari Botha post on both frockwriter’s and my personal Facebook pages, using one of Botha’s IMG Models showcards as an illustration – and her published shoe size, "7.5", sparked a raft of comments. “How does a 5’11” woman have such small feet?!” asked Sydney-based media trainer Shauna Stafford. Another noted, “Most women that size would have size nine or ten feet”. While a former magazine maven chimed in, “Your basic nightmare. Perfect” – referring, we assume, to the dearth of “unusual” shoe sizes in the fashion cupboard of a typical magazine.

Andrej Pejic doesn't answer his phone for less than $10,000

nathan paul swimwear out-take via mariah jelena kordzadze's facebook

It’s been a long time since Andrej Pejic opened the Antipodium show at Australian Fashion Week. Three years to be precise. In the interim, alongside a score of headline-grabbing magazine appearances and advertising campaigns, Pejic has blazed a trail on the runways of fashion weeks in Paris, New York, London, Milan, Tokyo, Toronto, Sao Paolo, Barcelona, Berlin and Instanbul, modelling both menswear and womenswear - not to mention bridalwear. Digital Fashion Week Singapore is the latest fashion event to snap Pejic up, billing him as the "supermodel" star of its upcoming showcase, which will run from October 20-22. Apart from a couple of fleeting appearances downunder, why has he been conspicuous by his absence on Australia's runways you ask? Because we can’t afford him it seems.

Andrej Pejic is shooting a reality television show

vestal magazine via models.com

It was only a matter of time, surely, before Andrej Pejic scored his very own reality television show. In July last year, in fact, he hinted there had been an approach, when he put the question to his Twitter followers “Should I do a reality tv show? I mean what would I have…. to say”.

Couture Chic

Australian agency Chic Management might be girding its loins for the imminent touchdown of IMG Models in Sydney and a potential run for its money as the toughest model negotiator in town, but when it came to the crème de la crème of world fashion events – the Paris haute couture shows, which wrapped yesterday – it had a clear monopoly. In the biggest Australian haute couture season that frockwriter can certainly recall, a total of nine antipodians worked the runways, seven of them repped in Australia by Chic: Montana Cox, Chrystal Copland, Nicole Pollard, Jemma Baines, Alexandra Agoston, Catherine McNeil and Ajak Deng (Deng is represented in Sydney only; her mother agent/personal manager is Stephen Bucknall from FRM Management in Melbourne). While it was the first haute couture season for Cox, Copland, Pollard and Baines, interesting to see McNeil and Agoston back at the couture for the first time in, by our estimate, three years.

Andrej Pejic covers i-D

matt jones/i-D via models.com

Andrej Pejic's star continues to rise, with the publication of his 10th international magazine cover in just over a year. This time it's a pretty big deal: i-D magazine. One of seven Summer 2012 covers of the British pop culture bible, Pejic was shot by Matt Jones and co-stars with model Dree Hemingway. The other covers feature a phalanx of "It" folk, from actors Léa Seydoux and Andrew Garfield to models Arizona Muse and Agyness Dean, Julia Restoin-Roitfeld and newly-crowned Christian Dior creative director Raf Simons. Pejic joins a handful of other Australians who can claim "of the moment" status via an i-D cover: Emma Balfour, Miranda Kerr, Gemma Ward, Ajak Deng and Abbey Lee Kershaw. And i-D isn't the only magazine Pejic is fronting this month - he also appears on the May cover of New Zealand's Black. With his Jean Paul Gaultier Kokorico fragrance campaign due to bow soon, stand by to see what else might be in the pipeline. Here is a gallery of his recent covers:

The showboys: Gear Model Management - MBFWA SS 12/13

jono palmer via gear model management

Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia is primarily a showcase of womenswear collections. That said, a few designers also do menswear and this year's event, which runs from April 30th - May 4th at Sydney's Overseas Passenger Terminal, includes one group menswear show. All the agencies whose MBFWA SS1213 womens' showcard packs frockwriter has published over the past three days - from Chic to Chadwick, Viviens and The Agency Models - also of course represent men, who will be out and about at MBFWA show castings, alongside their female colleagues. This time we thought we would focus on some guys. It's a particularly strong group of new faces from another new, niche Sydney agency called Gear Model Management (which, likewise, also represents women). These new faces include striking 22 year-old Sydneysider Jono Palmer (above), who looks like the love child of Andrej Pejic and Megadeth's Dave Mustaine. 

Best in show - the Australian models of Fall/Winter 2012/2013

julia nobis after the miu miu FW1213 show/altamira via ford models

That's a wrap for Fall/Winter 2012/2013 folks. Above is a shot of Julia Nobis taken just after Miu Miu on Wednesday, the final day of Paris Fashion Week. She's looking a little dazed and confused. Considering that by our count, Nobis walked in 73 shows from New York to London, Milan and Paris - besting her record from last season by one show - no surprises there. Nobis led the Australian model pack once again and quite possibly will also emerge as the season's number one catwalker for the second consecutive time. So far, we have counted 34 Australians on the FW1213 runways. There was pretty much an Australian in every major show of the season. At Chanel, there were five: Nobis, Miranda Kerr, Montana Cox, Rose Smith and Caitlin Lomax. They walked in so many shows, they corrupted frockwriter's interface. No joke. After battling data problems for the past two seasons with the increasing size of these showlist posts, we have now had to put the show details of the busiest Australians into drop-down boxes. 

Andrej Pejic is considering a lead role in a French feature film

damon baker via models.com

Abbey Lee Kershaw isn’t the only Australian überblonde who may be considering a move into movie territory. Frockwriter always thought that the perfect film role for Andrej Pejic might be Pygar the angel in a remake of Roger Vadim’s 1968 sci fi classic Barbarella. While the latest Barbarella remake attempt may be stuck in development hiatus, we were very interested to hear that Pejic is currently seriously considering an offer in another film project. Also with a French director as it happens.

Is Andrej Pejic about to sign a fragrance deal?

jean paul gaultier FW1213/getty via daylife

Frockwriter was interested to watch the following story on Andrej Pejic which aired overnight on Sept à Huit on France’s TF1 Channel. The story followed Pejic in fittings and rehearsals for Jean Paul Gaultier’s Fall/Winter 2012/2013 menswear show last week (above) and Friday’s Michalksy womenswear show at Berlin Fashion Week. During one scene filmed inside his Paris agency, New Madison, a booker revealed that he has been booked for this week’s haute couture shows. One specific haute couture show is possibly a safe bet: Jean Paul Gaultier’s show on Wednesday. This time last year, Pejic famously closed Gaultier’s Spring/Summer 2011 haute couture show in a wedding gown. In signing off, the Sept à Huit anchor dropped another tantalising morsel of Pejic gossip in his voice-over: “He will sign, in several weeks, his first contract to lend his image to a major perfume brand”. UPDATE 23/02: Sources say the contract is for Jean Paul Gaultier's new menswear fragrance Kokorico. UPDATE 21/03: Now confirmed by Gaultier. 

Andrej Pejic wraps 2011 in a lingerie campaign for Hema

parool

It's Victoria's Secret all right. He closed Jean Paul Gaultier’s haute couture show in Paris as the traditional bride. He channelled Marilyn Monroe. He was presented to the Queen at Buckingham Palace. What other accomplishments could the androgynous, Bosnian-born, Melbourne-raised modelling superstar Andrej Pejic squeeze into the closing days of 2011? Try scoring an advertising campaign for womens’ lingerie. Behold two images from a new intimate apparel campaign from Dutch chain store Hema, advertising its “Mega Push-Up Bra”, as modelled by Pejic underneath two womens' dresses. Even in the super liberal Netherlands, Hema’s choice of model has made big news, with at least a half dozen Dutch news outlets picking up the story in the last few hours. The campaign was shot in Amsterdam in late September and is described as a "money job" by Pejic's Sydney agent, Chadwick's Joseph Tenni. "It's revolutionary" Tenni told frockwriter. "I've never known a man to do a womens' lingerie campaign before".

Bull market

tom bull by justin chung

Andrej Pejic is the undisputed king of Australian mens’ modelling right now – even if he’s rocking womenswear half of the time. Although yet to make the big dollars, in terms of profile, it’s impossible to ignore Pejic, with global news stories about him rolling out on almost a daily basis. He is currently the only Australian to make the models.com Top 50 Men list (#18). Others to catch the attention of the international fashion industry of late include Jordan Coulter, Jethro Cave, Frankie Eliss-Galatti, Broed Dillewaard and Jack Vanderhart - with indigenous Australian Jake Gordon recently popping up at a few New York Fashion Week shows. So far no other Australian men have matched the track record of Heath Townsend, now in his 30s and a David Jones ambassador, but an erstwhile advertising face of Louis Vuitton, Calvin Klein and Abercrombie & Fitch. But Tom Bull is making a pretty good start. 

Blowout at Buckingham Palace

antipodium's facebook

So Buckingham Palace's Australian reception is done and dusted. Three hundred and fifty guests descended on the palace last night for a special meet-and-greet with Her Royal Highness Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh, ahead of next week's royal visit downunder. So far there don't seem to be terribly many photos of Andrej Pejic. But Antipodium designer Geoffrey J Finch snapped these two shots of Pejic en route to the do in a rather demure black vintage Versace pencil skirt and charcoal grey Paul Smith blazer (and not Jean Paul Gaultier, a rack of whose clothes, we hear, had been sent to Pejic prior to the event). Teamed with, Pejic tells frockwriter, an Issey Miyake blouse, black tights, boots from Australian high street chain Tony Bianco and his mum's vintage gold belt from the 1980s, the most extravagant aspect of the outfit was his coiffure: dead straight blond hair extensions which reached to his waist - the antithesis of his Bellatrix L'Estrange-meets-Marie-Antoinette up do at Myer's recent relaunch party. In the absence so far of any photographic evidence, did Pejic actually get to meet the Queen or did he just mill about the reception rooms while a select few were run past Her Majesty? "All the guests who attended last night's reception were presented to The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh" a Buckingham Palace spokesperson told us.
 

Andrej Pejic and Geoffrey J Finch gear up for their hot date at Buckingham Palace

geoffrey j finch's facebook, juergen teller/photoshopped by frockwriter

Our recent post about Andrej Pejic heading off to meet the Queen at an upcoming Australian-themed reception at Buckingham Palace caused a minor stir. Although Pejic’s Australian agency Chadwick had initially confirmed Pejic would be attending this Thursday's soiree, faced with what we hear was a subsequent barrage of calls from the Australian mainstream media, the agency later played it a little coy, claiming Pejic “had not decided if he would make it to London”. Yeah, right. This morning, we spoke with fellow Buck Palace invitee, Pejic’s London-based Australian designer mate Geoffrey J Finch, who tells frockwriter the pair plans to head to the soiree together. “I couldn’t think of a better date to go with” said Finch, who was the first to put Pejic on a runway in womenswear way back in May 2009 in Sydney, when Pejic opened Finch’s Antipodium show at Australian Fashion Week. Finch is suiting up for the royal occasion in a double-breasted charcoal Burberry. Is he at all concerned that his date might turn up channeling Princess Diana? “It would be quite incredible, I’d love to see him in a little pleated collar” he noted. So far, however, we gather Pejic has been mulling over a rack of Jean Paul Gaultier. “I can’t wait to see what he pulls out of the bag” says Finch. UPDATE 14/10: Blowout at Buckingham Palace.

What will Andrej Pejic wear to meet the Queen?

love cat magazine via milk made

Earlier this month, Sydney-based PR agency Under The Wing Tweeted an invitation that its client Geoffrey Finch had received from The Master of the Household of Buckingham Palace (see below) for a special Australian-themed reception on Thursday October 13th - six days ahead of the kickoff of Queen Elizabeth II's visit to Australia. The London-based Australian expat is one of several hundred guests who are expected to descend on the Palace that evening and, as it emerges, one of at least three Australian fashion industry representatives. London-based retailer Yasmin Sewell has, we understand, also received a bait, as has gender-bending pop culture phenom Andrej Pejic. Although Buckingham Palace would not provide any further details about either the guest list or RSVPs when we checked overnight, Pejic's Australian agency Chadwick confirms that he will definitely be attending. The big question, of course, is just what will Pejic wear for such an occasion? UPDATE 14/10: A demure little black dress and waist-length hair extensions is the answer.

Andrej Pejic channels Marilyn Monroe

screen cap 'norman jean'

It was only a matter of time. After making fashion history in January in Paris by closing Jean Paul Gaultier's haute couture presentation as the traditional bride and thence gussied up for a gazillion photoshoots and indie videos, someone finally got fashion's favourite cross-dresser, Andrej Pejic, to do a Marilyn - Monroe that is. Called, hilariously, Norman Jean, this video was commissioned by Milk Made, the online editorial arm of New York's Milk Studios, from Love Cat magazine's Prince Chenoa and Jacob Dekat, working in tandem with filmmaker Jenna Elizabeth. Styling is courtesy Sex and The City costumier Patricia Field. It depicts bare-chested Pejic in a blonde wig and corset, chanelling Monroe during one of her most iconic moments: singing 'Happy Birthday, Mr President' to John F Kennedy at Madison Square Garden in May 1962, three months before her death.