Newsmaker Of The Week : Coco Rocha
Our Newsmaker of the week is Social Media Aficionado and Supermodel Coco Rocha.
With a social media presence of over 16 million followers, Coco was among the first in her field to embrace social media and has positioned herself as one of the most digitally-savvy models in the world. In 2013, Time magazine named her twitter account one of the 140 best twitter feeds. When she first started working the runways, there were no smartphones and no social media. Having a good eye for the potential of technology she started a blog to share images and stories with friends and family (something unusual at the time). It got discovered and quickly exploded, suddenly becoming a must-read among people she didn’t know with everyone wanting to see photos of a glamorous model.
Her meteoric rise into the fashion and modeling began when she was spotted by a modeling scout at an Irish dancing competition and was introduced to world-renowned photographer Steven Meisel, following which she appeared on the March 2006 cover of Vogue Italia and since then has graced the covers of top fashion magazines Vogue, Numero, Bazaar, ID, Dazed & Confused, Elle, Allure, L’officiel, Tatler and countless others.
Besides Meisel Coco has worked with leading photographers in the industry including Patrick Demarchelier, Mario Testino, Greg Kadel, Annie Leibowitz, Peter Lindbergh, Craig McDean, Mario Sorrenti, and Vinoodh Matadin. Her runway work includes Marc Jacobs, Versace, Prada, Louis Vuitton, Anna Sui, Dolce & Gabbana, Chanel, and countless others while advertising campaigns include Christian Dior, Chanel, Jean Paul Gaultier, Lanvin, Dolce & Gabbana and a plethora of others.
In December 2009, Vogue Paris named Coco one of the top 30 models of the decade. The following year she was awarded Marie Claire’s Prix d’Excellence as their “Model Of The Year’ at a ceremony in Paris, and just three months later she was presented the Elle Style award for ‘Model of the Year’ by Boy George in London. In 2013 Coco was awarded the model of the year award at the first ever Canadian Arts and Fashion Awards (CAFA) in Toronto.
Rocha and her husband, artist James Conran are devout Jehovah’s Witnesses with Rocha not compromising her beliefs–which for her means no nudity, lingerie and sheer clothing, among other things. The couple who have collaborated professionally on a number of film and art projects were married in June of 2010 and welcomed a daughter in March this year and named her Ioni James Conran. Rocha also has a jewelry line for charity Senhoa which supports victims of human trafficking in Asia.
Rocha published her first book, Study of Pose: 1,000 Poses by Coco Rocha, in 2014. Earlier this year, she partnered with Disney and HSN on a capsule collection to support their live-action Cinderella movie premiere and is also designing her own handbag collection for luxury brand Botkier which s expected to launch in the fall of 2015. Rocha who was previously represented by Wilhelmina Models, recently signed with IMG Models for worldwide representation.
For more on Coco take a look at her profile on FMD and check back next week to find out who our next Newsmaker is.
