Andrej 2010

Frockwriter first noticed Andrej Pejic at Sydney’s Rosemount Australian Fashion Week in May. Then 17 years old, Pejic was a little hard to miss at Ant!podium’s show: he opened it. And many may well have assumed he was a she. The incredibly androgynous Melbourne-ite has been modelling for 12 months, turned 18 on Friday and is about to complete his HSC (Australian highschool final year exams), with his agency, Chadwick, prepping to send him overseas. After Jethro Cave (who appears on the latest cover of New Zealand’s NO magazine), frockwriter predicts that Pejic will be Australia’s next edgy male modelling star. In its August edition, Australia's Pagesonline dedicated eight pages to Pejic. And he features on no less than 14 pages in the new issue 30 of RUSSH, in this intriguingly-titled, Will Davidson-lensed editorial ‘Creep’.

According to Chadwick Melbourne director Matthew Anderson, the interest in Pejic bucks a dramatic, and quite sudden, conservative shift back to beefier male models in the Australian market.

Notes Anderson, “Over the last 12 months skinny androgyny shifted when the economic crisis hit. Within a three month period we went from scrawn to brawn. Myer going from using Jethro Cave to (former Brit rugby league player) Kris Smith is a good example. In times of economic crisis, subconsciously advertisers seem to be responding to strong guys who look like they’re going to save us. That all-American, chiselled jaw, Abercrombie & Fitch guy seems to be the flavour of the month again”.









all images: courtesy russh

Indie mags lead the RUSSH to social media

It's fascinating to witness the pace at which some are diving into social media. Not surprisingly perhaps, when it comes to Australian fashion magazine publishing, it's the independents who are leading the way. Without the resources of massive online portals such as ninemsn.com.au and news.com.au, to which the biggest titles have access, the indies are thinking outside the square. Here is a video just-posted by RUSSH magazine on its day-old Tumblr blog. It's a "vidflip" of issue 29. The blog and Vimeo account are on top of Facebook (4,349 fans) and MySpace (10,538 friends) pages, as well as a Twitter feed (1,451 followers). Coincidentally, the launch of the RUSSH blog follows five days after a release from indie fashion rival, frankie, entitled, "Frankie doesn't freak out in face of new media".

In the press release, magazine retailer Sahil Merchant, from Mag Nation, talks up the title:

“Just think about how many people chat about a frankie article over coffee. The magazine becomes almost a social lubricant, which elevates it beyond a mere collection of words and images.

"The same cannot be said about lots of other magazines, which are simply content in print. These are the ones that don't get the new media environment we are in, and will ultimately disappear”.

The release also quotes frankie's social media chops:

frankie.com.au (37,287 unique visitors/month)
Facebook (17,760 fans)
MySpace (13,962 friends)
Twitter (4,600 followers)

That's on top of, the release notes, the magazine's 29,135 audited readers.