Twenty-year-old, 6-foot-1 Andrej Pejic is a model for success: a women's size 2 or 4; angular cheekbones; full, pouty lips; bleached-blond hair; and impossibly long legs.
Yet the walk down the runway -- often squeezed into a ladies' size 10 shoe -- hasn't always been a smooth and glamour-ridden one.
Bosnian-born Pejic grew up as the younger son to a single mother of two. He spent most of his childhood in a Serbian refugee camp before moving to Melbourne, Australia.
While others are quick to attach labels to Pejic -- he's been referred to in the media everywhere from "James Blond" to "gender bender" to "femiman" -- androgynous sensation Pejic isn't so quick to constrict himself to a particular description.
"Growing up as a child, I would say that I was quite feminine. I exhibited feminine behavior. I played with Barbies, I played dress-up, I wanted to have long hair," he says.
It wasn't until Pejic was around the age of 8 or 9 that he recalls receiving the message that it just wasn't acceptable to exhibit these behaviors anymore, "because there was a fine line between how women behave and how men behave," he says.
Pejic cut his hair short, attempted to dress more "boyish" and tried his hand at football. "That crashed and burned," he laughs. Even with his so-called modifications, Pejic said he would still always be mistaken for a girl.
At the age of 14, prompted by a move to a different school and fed up with a bout of social anxiety, Pejic embraced the opportunity to showcase his now signature look.
"One morning, I bleached my hair and started wearing fitted clothes and tattered jeans and exhibit the more feminine qualities that I had to work hard to keep hidden."
These same feminine qualities would later catch the eye of a modeling scout while Pejic was working at his part-time job at McDonald's.