About a boy

LAHORE: Fashion is all about the image. It is an industry that thrives on creating strong visual imprints that stir desire; the desire to be someone and to achieve something out of the ordinary.  And what can be more fascinating and extraordinary than a female model who is in fact, really a male.

Marc Jacob’s new face of 2011’s Spring campaign is 19 year old East European pubescent boy, Andrej Pajic who has taken the fashion world by storm and it’s not just because he is a boy but because he is a beautiful boy, so beautiful he makes you want to cry with those high cheek bones and those Angelina Jolie lips. It quite literally spells out beauty with the frightening power to cross over the conventional understanding of femininity and effectively crushes our dogmatic divisions of sexuality.

Touted to have Cindy Crawford’s face and Kate Moss’s body – an intriguing, potent and possibly lethal fashion combination, Pajic has already scored top mileage by appearing in three consecutive spreads in the bible of fashion; Vogue for Italy, France and even Turkey. He’s already managed to travel along the Holy Grail and will appear in Gaultier’s spring ads alongside supermodel Karolina Kurkova.

Pajic’s entry into fashion opens the Pandora’s Box of gender dynamics in society and the rigidity of the social and professional roles ascribed to men and women. Although fashion is largely fluid in terms of its acceptance of people of different orientations, particularly its recognition and glorification of male designers who more often than not are gay – it is an industry that despite influential male designers such as Jacobs and Lagerfeld, is by and large the playing field of women: Anna Wintour anyone? But very few work spheres have remained circumscribed to a single sex, so why should fashion, which thrives on shock value any way, shy away?

Many may find this trend disturbing and confuse it with making homosexuality more mainstream. However, it is simply a feminine looking man exhibiting femininity in an exciting way. Pajic represents a new wave in the fraternity that corresponds well with fashion’s hottest trend of military and androgyny. But don’t get me wrong, this is in no way a representation of masculinity nor is it a Begum Nawazish Ali, instead it is the creation of a new style trend that embraces both genders without rejecting either.

Pajic delivers a striking image of a sculptured face whose picture turns out to be completely riveting. Surprisingly enough even on closer inspections, one cannot detect even the slightest hint of testosterone. But then again, how many women and female models in specific will be open to the idea that the one thing that was solely theirs is now being wrenched away by a man?

On a deeper level, the message that Pajic’s success sends out is that gender and sexual identity in the post modern information age, is not only fluid but irrelevant. If you have the skill set, talent and passion to be something, anything, you can be just that, and be applauded for it if you are indeed good.  The entire process has begun to unravel a viable avenue for boys who may have been objects of derision for their feminine features. The fact that a young boy is able to capture the attention of global fashion’s big wigs is an indication that what do you is more important than what you are.

For Pakistan adopting such a trend would yield two polar binaries: it will open up an avenue for experimentation, a creative license where fashion will be able to explore and push new boundaries vis a vis shoots without inciting the mullah brigade. Or conversely, it may just push a very dangerous button with the conservative factions who will demand that men should not be dabbling in the women’s section. The fact that Begum Nawazish Ali has attained celebrity in its own right is an important aspect of our zeitgeist which is a clear signal that we just might be poised enough for gender fluidity as well.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 12^th, 2011.