This canadian supermodel has lots of reasons to dance an Irish jig! By Dan Grant
Born: Toronto, 1988
Astrological Sign: Virgo
High School: Hugh McRoberts in Richmond, B.C.
Last Name is pronounced: RO-shuh
Background: Irish, Welsh, & Russian
You’re 18. One of the planet’s top fashion houses names you as the face of its new fragrance. You’ve already spent a year under exclusive contract to the world’s most influential fashion photographer and been singled out as the top new model at New York Fashion Week. What’s next? If American Vogue is right, you’re one your way to becoming one of the world’s next top models!
Welcome to the life of Coco Rocha. Since
being discovered at an Irish dance competition a few years ago, the Richmond, B.C., teen has enjoyed more success than most models can ever dream of.Vervegirl chatted with the 5'10" brunette in July. It was only days earlier that she was announced as the face of Yves St. Laurent’s new fragrance Elle (her first fragrance campaign, and her first TV commercial). And, of course, she was walking Parisian runways for designers such as Christian Dior and Chanel.
Not bad for a girl who never considered modelling before a “creepy man” asked her if she was interested. “Of course my reaction was ‘This man is a weirdo!’” says Coco. “But I eventually I said ‘I’ll try it out if you stop asking me.’ And here we are.”
Along the way she proved the industry maxim that sometimes it only takes one photographer to fall in love with you to be successful. For Coco, that photographer was Steven Meisel, who signed her to a one-year contract in 2006, then photographed her more than once for Italian Vogue—the Bible of the fashion industry.
But behind all the touched-up images and professionally applied makeup (she had to arrive six hours early for makeup at a recent haute couture show) is
the real Coco. She’s happy—you can hear that in her voice—and she’s grateful for the opportunities that contributed to her success. Travelling, for instance, is something Coco had done a lot of thanks to a mother who works as a flight attendant. “I got to travel pretty much all over the world.It really helped, especially when I was 16 and I left my mom to go live in New York.” Now she travels to new places for the first time thinking “Oh, this is easy, I’ve seen this before. It’s not too different.”
She’s also thankful for the friends who helped her learn about fashion when her career started to take off. Coco admits she knew nothing about top designers, and it was the support of her pals back home in B.C. that made the transition from high school to high fashion a smooth one. “I’d still be a little lost; a little, lost lamb.”
