Tucked nonchalantly into a massive feature was a little sentence containing a huge piece of news: This year, Andreja Pejic will become one of the first transgender models to star in a major beauty campaign.
The beauty scene is now inclusive as transgender model Andreja Pejic has landed her very own campaign. Make Up For Ever has tapped Andreja Pejic as its new face, according to a Vogue. The move will make Pejic one of the first transgender models to star in a major beauty campaign, joining Lea T., who appeared in a Redken campaign. The company has confirmed its collaboration with Pejic in an email to Refinery29 with an announcement that came in an epic month for Pejic.
Pejic isn’t the first transgender model to snap up a major beauty deal: Lea T holds that honor, having signed on as the face of Redken back in November 2013. And, Jazz Jennings, a 22-year-old transgender teen who was previously named a spokesperson for Clean & Clear had her third gender confirmation surgery.
This trio represents an extremely important shift in the industry with trans individuals now representing makeup, skin care, and hair brands.
While plenty can argue that beauty is extremely backwards in a number of aspects, the acceptance of Pejic, T, and Jennings shows a more progressive shift and points to its ever-changing face. The more we’re able to identify different types of women as beautiful, the more open and accepting the industry as a whole becomes. It’s an important step for the beauty industry and society as a whole, and we’re excited to see it happening now.
In an interview with Style.com last summer, Pejic briefly mused about how landing a beauty contract would be “cray cray.” .
Ana is where it all begins for the transgender community as In future they hope to see more campaigns and advertisements that feature the different women the beauty industry touches. But, until that point, we’ll count all of the above as a major win.
But for now, the only crazy situation she’ll need to confront is how to remove Make Up For Ever’s perfectly waterproof liquid lip colors, for which we suggest patience and a serious makeup wipe. (A rep for Make Up For Ever told the Cut that the brand can confirm Pejic has a contract with the company, but wouldn’t reveal when it would roll out.)
Meet Andreja Pejic.
—Lauren Maas