Facebook / Andreja Pejic
Since her first appearance on Paris’s catwalk, Andreja Pejic has turned the fashion world upside down.
Transgender model Andreja Pejić responded to a resurfaced clip from 2012 of Russian entrepreneur Miroslava Duma taking aim at her in a transphobic comment.
What happened?
During a 2012 lecture in Moscow titled Fashion in the Internet Era, Duma targeted Pejić and blogger Bryanboy. Duma said she’d ‘never publish someone like Pejić’ on her website, Buro 24/7, citing concern ‘about the beauty and purity of the images we publish.’ She went on to discuss how she doesn’t like seeing men wearing female fashion, and how a ‘certain kind of censorship is needed’ to keep little boys from seeing such images.
‘Honestly, I dislike that. Because somewhere, on TV or in a magazine, a little boy could see it. And that boy wouldn’t understand it correctly, wouldn’t react correctly,’ Duma stated.
‘There’s this weird person called Bryanboy.…There’s another weird person called Pejic. Who else can you remember here? Thank God there aren’t that many of them! We’re very concerned about the beauty and purity of the images we publish on Buro 24/7,’ she continued.
The response
In a lengthy Instagram post from 25 January, Pejić wrote:
‘I woke up to a video yesterday, where a woman by the name of Miroslava Duma said some pretty ugly things about [Bryan Boy] and me during a conference. I won’t say it wasn’t hurtful. However, instead of focusing on this blatant ignorance, I couldn’t help but realize the contrast between the state of our business today in comparison to 2012, the year of this video. Fashion hasn’t always celebrated, to quote [Duma] “people like us.” Today I can say I’ve walked for iconic designers like [Marc Jacobs] and even landed on pages of American Vogue as none other than myself.’
‘However for a long time I didn’t believe that I was deserving of a firm place in fashion. I remember when I was one of only two people representing a specific “trend” that many people would now place under the title “gender diversity in the fashion space.”’
Duma issued an apology for these transphobic remarks, as well as for using a racial slur on her Instagram Story recently.
‘First things first, I am deeply ashamed by the comments I made in 2012,’ Duma said on Instagram. ‘Frankly, I’m as shocked as anyone to be viewing that footage today, and to see for my own eyes how utterly offensive and hurtful my actions were back then.’
Duma has since turned off comments on her Instagram posts.
