'You can't eat much if you want to do this': Womenswear model Andrej Pejic struggles to maintain his 25in waist

By Lauren Paxman


Womenswear favourite: When Kate Moss bumped into Andrej Pejic (pictured in Rio), she just whispered 'you're beautiful' to him as she walked past

He's a male model who made a name for himself walking in womenswear runway shows.

But it takes more than long hair and high cheekbones for Andrej Pejic to fit in with his female counterparts.

The Bosnian-born 20-year-old, who grew up in a Serbian refugee camp and in Melbourne, admits to get his waist down from 29in, he has to virtually starve himself.

In an interview with Grazia magazine, he said: 'Let's be honest. You can't eat much if you want to do this.

'To do womenswear I have to be disciplined. My waist has gone from 29 to 25 inches, my hips are 35 inches.'

But it seems his regimented diet is working.

The model was snapped up by Storm's Sarah Doukas (who also spotted Kate Moss and Lily Cole), added to the agency's male and female model boards and soon put in a wedding dress for Gauthier's Paris show's finale.

Even top model Kate Moss thinks he's 'beautiful.'

But while modelling womenswear means Andrej is paid more than he would be paid if he was wearing the trousers, it's not all plain sailing.

And not everyone is happy with Andrej's transformation.

'I'm not sure how the girls feel about me. They're very competitive,' he says - a diplomatic way of implying that his fellow models are not entirely supportive.

They are not the only ones.

Two major U.S. book retailers censored an image of the effeminate model on the cover of an art book 'in case customers confuse him for a woman'.

FHM magazine also described the model as a 'thing' when he was voted into to 98th place on the lad mag's list of the world's sexiest women.

But, perhaps surprisingly, the cross-dresser did not come across much abuse as he grew up. He always passed for a girl, so noone ever confronted him. It was only when he had to wear the men's uniform in McDonald's that he felt really uncomfortable.

He has been slipping into frocks ever since he was little. And while his mother initially tried to stop him, she always made him feel very loved and encouraged him to be the man he wanted to be.

Looking good: 'To do womenswear I have to be disciplined. My waist has gone from 29 to 25 inches, my hips are 35 inches,' Andrej says


Andrej told Grazia: 'I love the feeling of wearing a dress, it feels very natural to me'


Thanks to his liberal upbringing, a gender-bending profession that could potentially be confusing is very straight-forward for Pejic.

In an interview earlier this year, he said: 'Sometimes I feel like more of a woman, other times I feel male.

'I'm sure most people think of me as a woman. It doesn't bother me anymore and I feel fine about it... I don't consider my looks unusual.'

He recently added: 'I don't want to be a girl, but I like to dress as a girl.'


source:dailymail