“You don’t need to be the next big thing”: Coco Rocha on mentorship, motherhood and moisturising

At 19, Coco Rocha was hailed as fashion’s next big thing. At 35, she’s not interested in chasing the label. “Models were considered trends,” she says. “But longevity doesn’t come from chasing a moment. It comes from building something meaningful over time.”

Rocha has been modelling for over two decades. Her face and those whip-smart poses are plastered across countless vision boards and Tumblr pages. But these days, she’s focused on showing up differently: as a mentor, teacher and a mother of three. At the Coco Rocha Model Camp, she trains new talent not just in movement, but in mindset. “Too many models just want approval,” she says. “But when we create images or speak from a platform, we need people to feel something. They don’t have to love it. They can hate it, be confused by it, shocked by it—but feel something.”

It’s a lesson she learned later in her career. “When I started, it was just do the job and hope the people in the room like it. But liking it isn’t really enough.” Somewhere along the way, her strategy changed: from pleasing people to leaving an impact. “That’s when my career started lasting. Even if I wasn’t trending, I stayed.”

The way she describes her work now is more like performance art than posing. “Modeling for me is about creating a performance. If I can make the audience feel something, it moves the character along. It gets the photoshoot going.” Music is her tool. “It’s our secret sauce,” she says. “Even if it’s just dancing a little behind the stage for a runway show, it helps me start moving and step into character.”

That connection between body and feeling runs deep. Rocha trained as a dancer, and her approach still carries that physical intelligence. She uses music to “get out of my head and into my body,” especially before high-pressure shoots. Once the job’s done, she’s quick to switch back to real life. “At the end of the day, I realise I’m Coco the mom who has to pick up her kids,” she says. “You flick a switch, and you’re back.”

Still, some feelings linger. “If it was a lot of emotions expected from me, I can still feel those when I leave and go home. But that tells me I probably did a really good job.”