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These Fashion Ads Used an All-Transgender Team

Photo: Patrik Osterberg/& Other Stories

With transgender models like Andreja Pejic and Hari Nef  making major waves in recent months (Pejic is fronting a Make Up For Ever campaign, while Nef recently signed with IMG), trans visibility in fashion has never been higher. A new campaign from & Other Stories stars Nef and fellow trans model Valentijn de Hingh, but it’s not just those in front of the camera who are part of the story, this time. The H&M sister brand also hired photographer Amos Mac, stylist Love Bailey, and makeup artists Nina Poon, all of whom are transgender, to execute the shoot. In the words of the brand’s creative director, Sara Hildén-Bengtsson: “The fashion world is embracing transgender models and we think that’s great. But we couldn’t help to ask ourselves how the traditional fashion gaze can change if we keep the same normative crew behind the camera.”

“Fashion has played a huge role in the process of constructing my identity,” Nef says in an accompanying (not yet released) film, titled The Gaze & Other Stories and directed by Ninja Thyberg. “Fashion was my first exposure to different ways of being a woman that weren’t necessarily rooted in conventions or conventional beauty.”

Photo: & Other Stories