At the beginning of June, king of the emerging gender trend Andrej Pejic made headlines when he was ranked 98th in FHM’s 100 Sexiest Women in the World 2011. Voted for by FHM’s readers, the male model’s position remarkably caused a stir not so much with the public, but with the magazine’s editorial.

Controversially, one of the magazine’s staff commented: “The gender bender has jumped the gun in hoping he might one day be signed as a Victoria’s Secret Model (pass the sick bucket).”

Understandably, these comments caused widespread outrage and FHM were forced to remove the entry from its website, replacing the text with the following apology: “Regrettably the copy accompanying Andrej’s online entry wasn’t subbed prior to going live. Once we realised, we removed it immediately and apologised for any offence caused.

“FHM has spoken to the individual concerned and taken steps to ensure this can never happen again.”

Pejic also sparked more debate when Barnes and Noble chose to censor a cover of Dossier magazine which featured him topless, “just in case customers confused him for a woman”.

Although it seems some may be hesitant to embrace diversity, the rise of the androgynous model is now an unstoppable force as ‘it’ models like Pejic are gaining widespread success.

Unusual beauties are springing up as a consequence of being part of a youthful and creative time where there are no longer any limits.

As we know all too well, the modelling industry is continually searching for the next big thing, whether they are androgynous, plus size or in fact any shape or size. So it is important to remember that whilst the catwalk can be a fickle place, it is breaking boundaries and stereotypes all the time.