Androgynous and not him

an·drog·y·nous

   [an-droj-uh-nuhs] 

adjective

1)         being both male and female; hermaphroditic.
2)         having both masculine and feminine characteristics.
3)         having an ambiguous sexual identity.

4)         neither clearly masculine nor clearly feminine in appearance:the androgynous look of many rock stars.

When I say androgynous, who do you think of? Chances are high it's Andrej Pejic.

To be honest, I did the same. And so do most magazines and bloggers. Today's issue of DSmagazine featured an excellent article on 'unusual' models. And as an example for the androgynous model, they of course took Andrej. That's a bit of a pity because they had the opportunity to learn us something new. 

''Well ok,'' I thought, ''if they won't, I will''. So here's a post on androgynous models, that aren't Andrej Pejic.

Lea T

First we have Lea T. Quite well known too, but after a boom in 2010 things have been slowing down. She was the  personal assistant of designer Ricardo Tisci who put this boy-gone-girl in the spotlights of the Givenchy Fall-Winter 2012 campaign. She is most known for her controversial cover of LOVE magazine where she kissed Kate Moss. 

Valentijn de Hingh

When Valentijn was still a boy, he was discovered by Dutch film- and documentarymaker Hetty Niesh who followed him until he was seventeen. At that age, he had a gender reassignment surgery. A few months later IMG models spotted her and she got booked for Margiela and Comme des Garçons in 2008. After a brief period of popularity Valentijn decided to quit modeling and started studying literature science at Amsterdam University, hoping to persue a future in fashion journalism. Lately though, due to the rising popularity of androgynous/transgender models she put herself on the market again. She landed, among other things, a LOVE magazine spread.

David Chiang

Though discovered early at the age of thirteen, Taiwanese-born-Canada-raised David deferred his career until he was 21. His catwalk appearance (McQueen FW 2010, the designer's last) was a hit and he got booked for other brands soon after it. Chiang walked shows for Armani, Dior, Diesel, Richard Chai and many more. But with Karl Lagerfeld as fairy godfather, this doesn't come as a big surprise. Baptiste Giabiconi anyone? ;)