Andrej Pejic’s Zeit Cover Cleverly Plays With Gender Pronouns

by Justin Fenner | 11:01 am, February 17th, 2011

OK, class. Take out your pens — we’re about to do a quick little lesson in German grammar, which is completely necessary in order to understand why Andrej Pejic‘s cover for Zeit Magazin is almost too awesome for words, in any language.

The cover, shot by Juergen Teller, features Pejic in women’s clothing, languishing against a wall. It’s nothing new for the 19-year-old model, who has walked in four women’s shows and four men’s shows during New York Fashion Week, and appeared wearing a wedding dress in Jean Paul Gaultier‘s couture show earlier this month. Appropriately, the cover line proclaims “Sie ist ein model.” (Click the photo to enlarge it and see for yourself.)

As Frockwriter points out, “Sie ist ein model” translates to almost exactly what it sounds like in English: She is a model. But this declaration uses the masculine article “ein” instead of the feminine article “eine” in a really clever nod to the fact that Pejic is a dude. We’re having a sad moment for the English language right now. Is there a linguist who can tell us why we don’t assign nouns gender, too?

Anyway, this cover might just be one of the most intelligent magazine fronts we’ve seen in a while. We love it, but what do you think?

Andrej Pejic on the cover of ZEIT magazin [Frockwriter]

andrej pejic Andrej Pejic Androgyny andrej pejic model Androgynous Models androgyny Zeit Magazin

Sophie von Oertzen

Sorry, guys but you are a bit mistaken here: “ein Model” always is masculin because that’s the gender of the word in German.
But I do love the cover (and the magazine is great, too…) and will have to buy it immediately.
http://www.styleite.com Verena von Pfetten

Sophie! Wie geht’s? My mom is on vacation right now so I didn’t have anyone to go to for final confirmation. Will you be our new official German translater? xx.
Sophie von Oertzen

Oh, I’d love that! I’m sure you must have so much to translate… x
http://dearwinnie.com Chelsea Rae

During French class, I thank the gods, English doesn’t assign gender to words, but we have other complications that make me glad English is my first language and I’m able to simply learn a language as poetic as French.
Anonymous

Even though the article is a bit incorrect I liked it nonetheless. And the cover is pretty cool.
glamourworld

On the cover it says “she is a model” but when you turn the page you see another picture of Andrej and the sentence continues “… and he is looking good”. It is a reference to the Kraftwerk song ‘The Model’ which everyone knows in Germany. Of course the line in the Krafdtwerk song is “she is a model and she’s looking good”.

Andrej Pejic’s Zeit Cover Cleverly Plays With Gender Pronouns

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