Coco Rocha Biography

Coco Rocha (born Mikhaila Rocha; September 10, 1988) is a Canadian fashion model.

Early life

Rocha was born in Toronto, Ontario, and grew up in Richmond, British Columbia where she attended Hugh McRoberts Secondary School. Her family is in the airline industry. She is of Irish, Russian, and Welsh descent.

Career

In 2002, agent Charles Stuart approached Rocha at an Irish dance competition and asked her if she would consider modelling for him. At that point, she had never thought of modelling before. When she did begin to model, her knowledge of fashion was limited. She eventually gained insight into the fashion world after her best friends crammed in fashion study sessions in between studying for exams.

Rocha started her professional career in 2004, signing with SUPREME in New York City. Two years later, Rocha met fashion photographer Steven Meisel. Soon, she was featured in an editorial with Gemma Ward and Amanda Moore. The editorial kickstarted her career, landing her the cover of the February 2006 issue of Vogue Italia. The week after, she walked the Spring/Summer 2006 New York City runways for a handful of designers, most notably Anna Sui and Marc Jacobs. Backstage at the Anna Sui show, Rocha met model Naomi Campbell, who held her hands and told her she was "her new favourite model". After the New York Fashion Week, she soon followed by taking part in the Paris Fashion Week as well. She walked for esteemed designers like Stella McCartney, Shiatzy Chen, Christian Lacroix, Emanuel Ungaro, and Marc Jacobs.

During Jean Paul Gaultier's Scottish Highlands-inspired Fall/Winter 2007 show in February 2007, Rocha opened the show by Irish-dancing down the runway; American Vogue dubbed this the "Coco Moment" and suggested it as a sign that the fashion industry misses the "supermodels".

In the May 2007, issue of Vogue (US), she was featured on the cover with models Doutzen Kroes, Caroline Trentini, Raquel Zimmermann, Sasha Pivovarova, Agyness Deyn, Jessica Stam, Hilary Rhoda, Chanel Iman, and Lily Donaldson as the new crop of supermodels. In 2008 casting agent James Scully said of Rocha:</ref>}}

Rocha has been on the covers of many top fashion magazines including American, Brazilian, Italian, Japanese, Korean and Spanish Vogue, Flare, Fashion, Numéro, French, W, Harper's Bazaar, Dazed & Confused, i-D, Time Style & Design, among others.

Since her debut, Rocha has been the face of a variety of advertising campaigns including Versace, Americana Manhasset, Balenciaga, Chanel, D&G, Dior, Dolce & Gabbana, Lanvin, The Gap, Ports 1961, Tommy Hilfiger, Yves Saint Laurent, Esprit, Liz Claiborne, Calvin Klein, Nicole Farhi, DeBeers, Zac Posen, and Rimmel. She has appeared in editorials for American, Italian, Korean, French, Russian, Spanish, Brazilian, Japanese, Mexican, and British Vogue, British, Canadian, Czech, French, Quebec, and Italian Elle V, W, French, Korean, and Japanese Numéro, British and Japanese Dazed & Confused, i-D, Time Style & Design, and Ukrainian, Russian, Korean, and American Harpers Bazaar

In July 2010, Rocha appeared on the Vogue website daily for an entire month in a feature named "Today I'm Wearing". The following month, Rocha appeared on a billboard in Times Square for an ad campaign with Marie Claire magazine in partnership with Project Runway in which she modeled a contestant's winning design.

In spring of 2011, it was announced that Rocha would again be the face of a limited edition Karl Lagerfeld designed Coco Cola light campaign. She previously collaborated with Lagerfeld and Coca-Cola in 2010. In July 2011, Coco Rocha became the first high fashion model to be photographed by the Lytro Camera, the camera takes what the company calls a "living picture," meaning that it captures enough visual information in a single exposure so that the focus and zoom can be adjusted even after the picture is taken. Rocha said she reached out to the company after reading about them on the website Mashable.

In August 2011, it was announced that Coco would be the face of an upcoming Karl Lagerfeld for Macy's collection. In mid-February 2012, Coco appeared in a commercial for White House Black Market created by New York advertising agency Ceft and Company in which she was featured tap-dancing.

Activism and charitable work

Rocha is one of the few models who has spoken out against the prevalence of eating disorders in the modelling industry. In an open letter to The New York Times on her blog, she wrote, "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." In an email to the Associated Press, she wrote: "I'll never forget the piece of advice I got from people in the industry when they saw my new body ... They said, 'You need to lose more weight. The look this year is anorexia. We don't want you to be anorexic but that's what we want you to look like.'

In June 2011, Coco announced a partnership with Canadian fashion retailer Jacob for a "Photoshop-free" campaign. On her blog Rocha said she hoped the shoot could "balance the scales a little by pulling so far back from what has been the current trend of total digital model manipulation."

On October 11, 2011 Coco Rocha appeared on Anderson Cooper's daytime television show Anderson, where she said models are scouted too young and put under pressure to stay thin and behave unnaturally, while they are "still minors".

On November 1, 2011 Coco launched Coco Rocha for Senhoa, a collection produced together with Senhoa, an organization helping Cambodian survivors of human trafficking. The capsule collection contained 7 unique pieces designed by Rocha and hand crafted by the survivors of human trafficking. All proceeds went directly to the Senhoa program. To help raise awareness for the cause, Rocha brought in additional models Chanel Iman, Caroline Trentini, and Behati Prinsloo. In the first of two campaigns, Iman, Trentini and Rocha were photographed by Nigel Barker.

Film and television appearances

Rocha hosted the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards white carpet. On October 19, 2011 she appeared as a guest judge on America's Next Top Model, where host and head judge Tyra Banks referred to her as "The Queen of Posing". The short documentary Letters to Haiti featured Rocha and fellow model Behati Prinsloo delivering supplies to Haiti after the 2010 earthquake; it was shot by Rocha's husband, James Conran. The movie premiered in Toronto in October and New York in December 2011. Rocha is one of three coach/judges (along with Karolina Kurkova and Naomi Campbell) of the 2013 Oxygen network reality show The Face.

Writing and online presence

Rocha wrote the foreword to Canadian fashion reporter Jeanne Beker's book Struttin It!, about the modeling profession. In March 2011, Coco announced the launch of her new website. The site was said to contain almost 10,000 pictures covering her entire career as a model so far.

In April 2012, Coco Rocha became the first high fashion model to have more than 1 million followers on the social media platform [[Google+]].

Awards and accolades

In October 2010, Coco Rocha was given Marie Claire's Prix d"Excellence as their model of the year at a ceremony in Paris.

In November 2010, Rocha was awarded the Seventeen Body Peace award by Seventeen magazine. Rocha had contributed a number of articles to Seventeen on the topic of girls' body image and self-esteem. On February 14, 2011 Coco was awarded the Elle Style award for 'Model of the Year' by Boy George in London.

On June 16, 2011, Coco Rocha and husband James Conran both received awards for their philanthropic work at the Pay It Fashion Forward event in Manahattan, NY. In 2012, Vogue Paris declared her one of the top 30 models of the 2000s.

References in popular culture

Coco Rocha was one of twenty high fashion models mentioned on Kanye West's 2010 song "Christian Dior Denim Flow".

Personal life

Rocha has been a devout Jehovah's Witness since childhood, and in a 2013 interview stated that she still follows the Jehovah's Witnesses tradition of preaching door-to-door. She calls herself "a Christian first and a model second", and says that due to her faith she will not pose nude, with cigarettes, guns, nationalistic emblems or religious icons.

Rocha married artist James Conran on June 9, 2010. Her wedding dress was designed by Zac Posen. Conran later became her part-time manager.