My Uncensored Point of View

There has been quite the commotion over the recent articles about me in the New York Times and The New York Daily News. As only a few select statements of mine were printed I find it necessary to properly express my point of view, without outside editing.

I'm a 21 year old model, 6 inches taller and 10 sizes smaller than the average American woman. Yet in another parallel universe I'm considered "fat"... This was the subject of major discussion this week and the story that was spun was: "Coco Rocha is too fat for the runway".

Is that the case? No. I am still used and in demand as a model. In fact I find myself busier than ever. In the past few years I have not gained an extreme amount of weight, only an inch here and there as any young woman coming out of her teenage years would.

But this issue of model's weight is, and always has been of concern to me. There are certain moral decisions which seem like no brainers to us. For example, not employing children in sweatshops, and not increasing the addictiveness of cigarettes. When designers, stylists or agents push children to take measures that lead to anorexia or other health problems in order to remain in the business, they are asking the public to ignore their moral conscience in favor of the art.

Surely, we all see how morally wrong it is for an adult to convince an already thin 15 year old that she is actually too fat. It is unforgivable that an adult should demand that the girl unnaturally lose the weight vital to keep her body functioning properly. How can any person justify an aesthetic that reduces a woman or child to an emaciated skeleton? Is it art? Surely fashion's aesthetic should enhance and beautify the human form, not destroy it.

There is division in the industry in this regard. Although there are those who don't consider a model's wellbeing, I have had the honor and privilege to work with some of the greatest designers, editors, stylists, photographers and agents who respect both new and well established models alike.  I know there are many others out there who I haven't worked with who also agree with me on the stance on this issue.

The CFDA has tried so very hard to correct these matters. As of a few days ago at their annual meeting they found everyone in the room in agreement on changing the sample size as well as booking models over the age of 16. It's great to see how many people's hearts are in the right place because we must make these changes for the next generation of girls.

As a grown woman I can make decisions for myself. I can decide that I won't allow myself to be degraded at a casting - marching in my underwear with a group of young girls, poked, prodded and examined like cattle. I'm able to walk away from that treatment because I am established as a model and I'm an adult... but what about the young, struggling and aspiring models?

We need changes. I'd prefer that there would be no girl working under the age of 16, but if that has to be the case then I'd love to see teens escorted by a guardian to castings, shows, and shoots. The CFDA has set codes in place for their members and I'd love to see the entire industry follow. Society legislates a lot of things - no steroid use in sports is one example - its only reasonable that there be rules of conduct to keep the fashion industry healthy.

In the past, models have spoken out on this issue, only to be accused of saying something because their careers were on the brink of extinction. This is not so in my case. I actually first spoke out about this two years ago at the peak of what a model would consider the ideal career and indeed there was a reaction -  those who were the worst offenders suddenly asked me to work for them! This was a public relations ploy and I wasn't prepared to fall for that. I said "No, lets go a few seasons, lets see if you change, then I will work with you". They didn't change. I haven't worked for them.

Of my generation of models I'm exactly where I need to be in my career and I'm grateful to use my position to actively speak out against this with the support of the CFDA and Vogue. My sincere hope is that through our efforts young models will one day be spared the humiliation, the risky weight loss, the depression that comes along with anorexia and the misery of abandonment by an industry ashamed to see them turn into actual women.

There are natural human standards in how we treat one another and how we treat children. There are those who continue to trample on these standards but there are also champions of a better way. I hope that the continued efforts of the CFDA and all those who hold these values in regard will sway the opinion of those on the opposing side of the industry to ensure a true change for the better.

Coco Rocha

The New York Times

I wanted to share this controversial article from yesterdays New York Times with you:

“I don’t do nudes, I don’t do semi-nudes, I don’t do cigarette shots,” Coco Rocha was saying on Sunday evening before the Diane Von Frustenberg show at the Bryant Park tents. “It took me a long time in the business to realize I didn’t have to do everything people told me I should if I wanted a career.”

Ms. Rocha is a model. Who isn’t nowadays? It used to be that kids wanted to grow up to be astronauts, police officers or doctors. Now it would appear that modeling is the career default of anybody who doesn’t have two heads. Ms. Rocha, according to a well-rehearsed story, was discovered by a scout at an Irish dancing contest in her native Vancouver, British Columbia. Whatever her real name is (apparently Mikhaila, which lacks the show-business pop of Coco), it was quickly altered, and she was sent to see Steven Meisel, the photographer who is fashion’s resident Pygmalion. Mr. Meisel photographed her in 2006 for the cover of Italian Vogue, and there followed in short order a series of high-profile jobs on catwalks, in magazine editorials and in advertising campaigns — enough of them to fill three fat paragraphs on her Web résumé.

The adjective before the word “paragraph” in the previous sentence was chosen for a reason. Despite all the recent blather about promoting wholesome body images and encouraging designers to scale up sample sizes — and a prevalent fantasy that the industry has suddenly embraced people of all sorts and shapes — fat in fashion remains anathema.

Ms. Rocha knows this because, incredible as it may seem to anyone who saw her prance down Ms. Von Furstenberg’s catwalk on Sunday (in what was, by the way, one of the most admirably diverse model castings in many a year), a lot of designers no longer hire her for their runways. They consider her a veritable behemoth in a business that makes a fetish of being what the actress Emily Blunt once termed “edge of ill” thin.

“Everybody knows that, in general, a basketball player needs to be tall and a fashion model needs to be skinny, but how skinny is too skinny?” Ms. Rocha asked.

Too skinny, according to James Scully, a seasoned casting agent who participated in a recent Council of Fashion Designers of America symposium on this issue, are the young teenagers now routinely cast for European shows.

“A lot of people are accountable, and nobody’s saying anything about it,” Mr. Scully said. “The business is not thinking about developing these girls as people.”

Well, some people are. Stella McCartney insists that models for her shows have some life experience under their belts, said Mr. Scully, who casts the McCartney shows.

Back in the days when fashion was a more restricted industry and the pool of talent limited, models were groomed and expected to have longer careers, making a transition as they aged and filled out from catwalks to catalogs.

Now, Mr. Scully said, the sheer number of aspirants is so great that a span of five years (or 10 seasons) is almost enough to qualify a model for a gold watch.

“What happens when these girls develop and turn into women?” Mr. Scully asked. “What’s going to happen to Karlie Kloss,” he added, referring to the teenager discovered at a charity benefit fashion show in her native St. Louis and now one of the most desirable models in the business, “when she develops breasts?”

Ms. Rocha can answer that question. “I’m not in demand for the shows anymore,” said the model, who has worked for Marc Jacob, Prada, Chanel, Dior, Jean Paul Gaultier and Louis Vuitton, among many others.

“I’ve been told to lose weight when I was really skinny,” said Ms. Rocha, who recently added a new line item to her résumé: correspondent for Modelinia.com, the Web site for the model-obsessed.

“You know what, I’ve stopped caring,” Ms. Rocha said. “If I want a hamburger, I’m going to have one. No 21-year-old should be worrying about whether she fits a sample size.”

And no lanky 14-year-old should be pressured to starve herself, to cadge prescription drugs like Adderall or to take up smoking as an appetite suppressant.

“Girls are told they’re not skinny enough, or they hear, ‘She’s old, she’s boring, we’ve had her, she’s not tiny anymore,’ ” Ms. Rocha said. “A lot of people don’t take into account the vulnerability of these young girls.” And the latest crop of models is not made up of “adults or even sort-of adults,” she insisted. “They are children. Point closed.”

By: Guy Trebay

The Beauty of Health

Tomorrow night I've been invited to attend the CFDA's yearly panel discussion on health, this time entitiled "The Beauty Of Health: Resizing The Sample Size". As some of you might know, two years ago I had the chance to speak at this event and voice my thoughts and concerns, to mixed reviews.

Since that time I've felt it was very important for me to continue to speak up on the issues surrounding the health of models in my industry. In 2010, with both the CFDA and Vogue's support, I'm making a special effort to find new ways to address the subject. Whether this means public speaking, one on one discussions or more topic specific blogs like this, I'm looking for ways to reach out and help.

I'm excited to see what the speakers and guests have to say tomorrow night but I also want to hear from you - Please let me know your thoughts and ideas of how I can be effective in reaching out this year. Let's put 2010 in the books as the year we changed fashion for the better.

XOXO COCO

To Haiti With Love

In response to the devastating January 12 earthquake in Haiti, the fashion industry has pulled together to organize a nation-wide effort to raise monies for the victims of the natural disaster. A $25 “Fashion for Haiti” T-shirt is on sale at stores across the country and online with proceeds  going to  immediate relief and recovery efforts for those most in need of assistance.

I recieved my T-shirt today and now I want to see a picture of you in your "To Haiti with Love" T-shirt so that I can post you in a future blog, here on ohsococo.blogspot.com. Buy the T-shirt and then send me your pictures either here or message me on twitter!

I cant wait to see!!

XOXO

COCO

Join Me February 12th!!

XOXO COCO

Creating A Grammy Dress

In the fashion industry we have a few big and exciting yearly events, but almost nothing can compare to the effort and production that goes into the Grammy's. For as long as I can remember, the Grammy's were the one award show that I couldn't miss on TV but it never crossed my mind that I'd ever get to go in person... At least not until I got a call from the people at ET Canada asking me if id like to correspond for them. Of course, I didn't hesitate to say yes!!

Right after I put the phone down the first thought that came to mind was: "What am I going to wear!?". Very early on I decided that this would be the perfect showcase for my first creation. Except, I didn't have a first creation... What I did have was a book full of sketches and designs that James and I had been working on for a few months, but none of them were "red carpet dresses" per se.  What I love about the Grammys is that it's one of the few times (outside of a fashion tent) that it's acceptable to wear completely outlandish pieces in public.  I promised myself that I'd take advantage of this opportunity and that I wouldn't go the "safe" route with something easily forgettable. So I sat down to design my Grammy dress from scratch...

This task wasn't easy for me. For one thing, almost everything has done before in the thousands of dresses that have graced the hundreds of red carpets over the last few decades. How would I make my dress different? How would I try to stand out from the dozens of other pretty ladies there in gorgeous gowns? I set out to design something a little unusual - not in the Lady Gaga red latex and a solar system way - just something slightly different than expected. I decided I wanted to create a dress that would have looked futuristic 200 years ago. Something like an 18th century lady superhero might wear to a ball. I started out by drawing a dress with a classic silhouette and then I updated it with a gold mini skirt and more costume-y accessories like the gold plated shoulder armor. The nice thing about the music industry is that dressing up for them is very much about fun, and I had tons of fun with this!!

A lot of thought went into the color too.  In my day-to-day life I'm a very monochromatic kind of girl and I love my blacks and grays, but when you're designing a dress to be seen on bright red carpet you want to go a little more daring with the colors. I went fabric shopping and picked out the royal blue silk because it had such a richness to it and the 24k gold accents gave the piece the regal feel I wanted. I then took my fabric and sketches and met with a dress maker down the street who I worked closely with over the next month, slowly turning my sketch into a reality. I even put James to work again, this time creating the gold armor pieces which he covered in real gold leaf!

The dress turned out just as I had hoped. Its not the greatest creation, but it's MY creation... my first of many. My upcoming line won't be a collection of costume Grammy dresses (or a collection of antique superhero uniforms) but, like my very first dress, it will continue to draw inspiration from the past while at the same time including elements and fabrics with a more futuristic feel.

I'm just a baby starting out at this. I'm fortunate to have good friends who also happen to be the worlds greatest designers and I respect their work immensely. Over the last six years they have let me wear their clothes and see up close what a truly great piece of clothing looks and feels like. In this little adventure of mine I will be relying extensively on their expertise and their years of training to help guide me as I have neither at this point. The only thing I do have is an open mind and an eagerness to learn. Hopefully these qualities, in addition to my knowledge of what looks and feels good on me as a woman will yield some positive results with my new line, Rococo.

One thing I will promise: No matter what,  I will be taking this very seriously!!

XOXO

COCO
P.S In my next blog I'll explain how I ended up with the name Rococo!