Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
From a young age, my parents always told me and my sister how important it was as a girl to be more than just a pretty face and I think we've carried that message through out our lives.
I was always excited by the idea of having my own company, but models are rarely serious when they venture off into something else, be it acting, singing, or starting their own business.
I've always thought of modeling as a performance, so I don't mind kind of pretending. I kind of pretend in a lot of my poses that I am a ballerina or a hip-hop dancer or a grunge performer.
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.
I don't do nudes. I don't do semi-nudes. I don't do cigarette shots. 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.
If you are a new, upcoming designer, you've got to think of new, cool ways to make the industry look at you. Don't just get stuck in a rut, show your clothes, and be like, 'You should like this.'
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.' A lot of people don't take into account the vulnerability of these young girls.
Weirdly enough, in my 14 years of modeling, I've only worn a blonde wig three times. I have no idea why I've never been given the option to really try blonde as a model. But here I am doing it on my own.
Having good style really just means having a decisive eye and being able to put things together in an aesthetically pleasing manner. It's not a matter of spending a lot of money and throwing it all together.
Personally, even though I have a great PR team, no one except my husband and I touch any of my 10 social media accounts. It's a lot of work, but I know that my brand, my image, and my voice are authentic to me.
To me, true style icons have been few and far between. Elizabeth Taylor comes to mind. I never got to meet her while she was alive, but she is one of those people I have always admired in terms of her sense of style.
Previously, someone would interview me, and if they liked me, it'd be a great story. If they hated me, it'd be a horrible story. I had no way to say anything. Social media changed things for people who didn't have a voice.
In the beginning, the clients would say, 'This is too much,' but over time, the ones I liked kept working with me. They'd say, 'It's not too much. Coco can still be Coco. She still gives 100 percent when she's on a photo shoot.'
I think, in general, models tend to do their favorite faces or their comfortable face, but your facial expression is just so important. You don't want to have an editorial of 20 photos where it's just you giving a 'Zoolander' face.
I find it funny to look at people who are people-watching, and, don't get me wrong, I like to people-watch, too. But it's an interesting thing when people on the street just stop and ask you, 'Are you Coco? Can I take a photo of you?'
Connecting with fans is very important to me and useful, too! It's almost as if I have my own focus group. If I put up one picture that gets 1,000 likes and one that gets 15,000 likes, it gives me a big clue as to what people like to see.
I love anything to do with cooking, from watching the Food Network to reading recipe books by Gordon Ramsay, Jamie Oliver and Levi Roots. My favourite types of cuisine are Asian and Caribbean, and I love cooking new recipes for my family.
My wedding dress is a piece of art that I'll treasure forever. It was designed and created by Zac Posen. I gave him only the tiniest bit of direction when he started, and the end product was more beautiful than anything I could have imagined.
Everyone thinks that because my dad was really well known for his body that I would have that pressure too, but the truth is that I don't look at those pictures of him being really muscley and say, "yep that's really what I want to look like!"
A lot of people might think the job of a model isn't necessary anymore, but just like an actor, singer - how they make you feel a certain way - how watching a dancer gives you emotion, models can do the exact same thing to many different people.
I'm always traveling, so I tend to online shop. My go-to sites are Net-a-Porter and Matches. I recently moved to N.Y.C. and frequently shop at Sur La Table for my kitchen; Flair home collection, Aedes de Venustas for all my favorite home fragrances.
I think there can no longer be such a thing as hitting a wall on a photo shoot. If I ever hear a photographer say to me, 'OK, what else?' I should retire, because that should never happen now having experienced just how much the body is capable of doing.
I always think that some of those moms who are rocking cool fashion looks while walking their little babies in a stroller is just the bomb. You don't have to, all of a sudden, have to transition into 'mom' outfits from the '90s just because you became a mom.
So many girls second-think their pose or what they're doing. And, in turn, the photos will come out really unnatural. I say to really give the camera a performance - that, and make sure you're comfortable with how you look, and give it a good smile and a filter.
If you're posting pictures to platforms like Instagram or Twitter, be selective about the one you post. If I'm capturing a sunset, I'll take at least 10 pictures. I'll then filter them using other apps, enhance them. Then, I really pick the best image of perhaps 30.
I remember working with Agyness Deyn. At the time, she was the only one who had short hair as a model. I remember being so envious of her because we would all be getting our hair pulled for two hours backstage, and she was getting a new haircut almost every other show.
Oh, the dilemma of the summer music festival. On one hand, we ladies try very hard to look cute walking around those muddy fields in our cowboy boots and cut-offs. On the other hand, we want to look like we really didn't try at all and just rolled out of bed looking this way.
Don't get me wrong: 'America's Next Top Model' is fantastic. They've done 20 seasons, so they've obviously done something right. But I think what ensures that the winner of 'The Face' will become a working model is the prize - a year-long contract with a cosmetics company is huge.
When I first started modeling, I had the chance to walk the runway with Naomi passing by me, but I didn't know anything about supermodels. But when I saw her backstage, she complimented me on my walk, and I thought she was so nice - everyone was freaking out that I didn't know who she was.
I didn't know anything about fashion. You would see me in the biggest sweater with jeans or the tightest elastic pants. Not nice clothes. My mom took me a lot to consignment stores when I was younger, and I never really got to go to fancy high-class stores, so... vintage was like a step up.
When I started, I knew nothing about fashion. I remember, my first day going to my agency, I was wearing these huge bell-bottoms - they were patchwork corduroy and denim, which, at the time, I thought were amazing. My agent told me, 'You have a casting with Prada - you have to burn those jeans.'
We get all excited about collaborations. You get excited to hear that Rihanna has something, because Rihanna is a singer, and she has amazing fashion. You want to see what she would create. I don't get upset and think, 'Someone else is going to do better than me.' You're like, 'Oh, good for her.'
Models can be people, too. But the only way to do that is to kind of step up and keep doing new things that no one has thought of, from new websites to new blogs, a newscast, doing speeches, talking to kids. It kind of opens a new headline every time: 'Oh, a model hasn't done this before; a model hasn't done that before.'
When I was asked to be a part of 'The Face,' I was like, 'This is exactly what I do without cameras.' I didn't find it any different than what I usually do for young girls - giving runway tips or just explaining how the whole industry works - but now you have, like, 19 cameras on you, documenting you while you scratch your nose.
I was once dressed as a mermaid for a Jean Paul Gaultier show. My legs were bound into a fish tail, so I had to come down the runway on crutches. Halfway down, I was supposed to unzip the fish tail to reveal my legs, but the zipper broke, so I ended up stabbing my fake nail through the fabric of the zipper and ripping my way out.
In fashion, there's a lack of strong male images. And there's a huge lack of strong African American images. I noticed over the past thirteen years, Ralph and those guys have used guys that looked similar to me. And I was happy for those guys, but eventually I said, 'Enough is enough, I'm just going to go in and take my job back.'
The funny thing is that, for some reason, people think when you're pregnant, you have to start wearing maternity wear and wear flats and look Mom-ish. I don't know exactly what people expect of people who are pregnant, but there's definitely a lot of moms out there that look super fabulous all the time, and I guess that's my inspiration.
One of my favorite poses was when working with Steven Meisel. It was one of my first photo shoots with him, and we were trying to get the cover of Italian 'Vogue.' Then, I literally took my Balenciaga hat, pulled it down, and gave a rolling-eye, 'ugh' face, crossed legs on the floor. And lo and behold, that was the cover of Italian 'Vogue.'
I was self-conscious of being so lanky, of being me. I'd keep my head down, make excuses not to go out. I'd look in the mirror and hate myself. I thought I was disgusting. I cried constantly from 11 to 16. If I could tell my younger self anything, it would be to learn to love your flaws. It's OK to look in the mirror and feel really confident about yourself.
I mean, a lot of people don't realize it, but fashion is one of the most racial industries left out there now. Radio and music aren't. Television and movies aren't. Even commercials now are showing interracial couples. You see a lot of diversity in TV shows, but you don't see that in fashion. You think there would be some, because the consumer is of all colors and all shades. But you don't see that in fashion.
I felt ugly, chubby, and stupid until I talked to my mom about it and she had me do a very good exercise that I recommend to every girl. She had me take a piece of paper and write down everything I liked and everything that I didn't like about my body and my life. By the end of the exercise, I realized that I had so many more things in my likes column. It showed me that while there are a few things in my dislikes column, I was giving ALL my attention to those few things!