Interview with Coco Rocha
Thursday / October 1, 2026
About Coco Rocha
Canadian model who began working at 14, later coached on The Face, and runs Model Camp and the agency Nomad Management with her husband James Conran.
Source: Silicon Valley Girl on YouTube
These answers are taken from TOP MODEL on the Body Image, Pressure of Industry and How She is Dealing with Hate | Coco Rocha on Silicon Valley Girl's YouTube channel. You! Backstage did not conduct this interview.
When did you start modeling?
This is how I've grown up in business, at an age of 14, 15, and it's get on a plane, do a shoot, come home. If it was back then, go to school, do your homework. Then I started having more businesses and more opportunities. So I don't really know any different. When people say you're busy, I'm like, yeah, I guess I am. This is just kind of how it's always been.
What do you enjoy most about modeling?
Early on in your career you never know if you're getting a good team or a bad team, because you don't know everyone. So I think those were the challenging moments: oh, I have a bully on set, or this person, they're just not fun to work with. But now I get to pick my teams a little more. And so it's great. It's fun. I love having a shoot where it's just full of laughs and giggles and we create some fantastic things.
What advice do you have for new models?
One of my favorite quotes is: it's nice to be important, but it's important to be nice. I think too many models start their careers with this belief that one day I'll be such a success and I can be intense, aggressive, nasty, I can do whatever I want, because people love a villain. Models aren't villains. The models I know that have made it, and successfully made it over and over, are truly the nice ones in the room.
If I were hanging out with someone for eight hours and they were just so lovely, but maybe their ears are a little quirky or their nose is a little funny, I'm gonna think it's beautiful now. But if I see someone that I truly thought gorgeous, but internally they started to be nasty, rude, somehow they don't look so gorgeous to me anymore. Looks do matter to a point, but most people are going to be gravitated to you because of how you work and how you treat people. And it's important that you're actually good at your job, because why keep everyone around that's mediocre?
What has been your greatest accomplishment as a model?
I think that this is the most fulfilling, when I see the feedback of what has happened to the models. Like when I hear a year's time from now, James will be like, that girl, she came to Model Camp. And I'm like, wait, isn't that... oh my goodness, I just saw her. That's always amazing. Not that Model Camp was the moment that changed their career, but it's just fun to know you had a little bit of part of it.
Think about a demanding photographer, designer or client. What made them difficult, and how did you work with them successfully?
Around that time, I do remember hearing from a photographer, he showed me a photo of a famous model at the time, her name is Gemma Ward, from Australia, and he wanted me to copy this pose. And he said, "Be like this model." And then he said, "You'll never be like her, but try to be her." I look back at that, what a strange thing. That guy already decided that I would never make it. Try to make it, but you're never going to make it. I think it's such a shocking attitude to come to anything with: well, it's never going to happen, so why even try?
At that time in my life, I remember hearing a lot of that: you're never gonna make it, but I guess just try. And I'm like, oh, I'm gonna try now. You told me I can't have it. I definitely now am going to try for it.
Has your career as a model progressed the way you expected?
There was a time in my life where I allowed the industry, and I say it in a generalization, it's not all bad people, but the industry dictated what I would do and how I do it, and be thankful and don't mess it up. And I think that I was so over that, that when it comes to my decisions now, I won't ever allow that to happen again.
So I never really have thought, oh, why did I get pregnant, I'm going to mess this all up. Because I knew that being a mom probably was going to be far more fabulous than doing this five more years if they told me you were done. And here we are today. We're not done. We're still doing it. I know some models that wouldn't get pregnant because they were so worried about the career. And I'm like, the career, to me, is not that important to change my entire course of life just so I could be relevant for one more year.
How do you keep communication clear with photographers, designers and your agency?
I do want people to hear feedback on a photo shoot and not assume it's always negative. Not everything someone says to us should be translated as, they don't like me, they hate me. That's one thing we all need to add in our filter system: filter that a little before you judge it completely.
I remember saying to people early on in my career, this person bullied me and this person did this and this and this. And looking back, I was like, no, they weren't trying to bully me. My immediate response was that's what they were trying to do. So I always say filter it. Just make sure what you are seeing is exactly what they're actually giving. And to your surprise you might realize not everyone is a meanie. Not everyone's trying to be a bully. Depending on their background, their upbringing, where they live, they might just speak matter-of-fact.
Tell me about a shoot or a show that was hard to pull off. What was it and why was it challenging?
You name it, it's probably happened. Weird stuff like working with animals, they're not fun. Being in a room that's just full of fire, being in water. Did you know, working with an elephant, they have to pee every 15 minutes, so you have to get the photo and then they got to go. Working with other people's children, it's kind of hard because it's not even your child. We call it guerrilla style when you don't have the right to be in a building or on the grounds, but you're shooting really fast and hoping no one gets you in trouble. Things where you can't control the sun, you can't control the environment, but you have to produce this moment. Those are usually the most challenging.
Tell me something I may not know from reading your credits.
Before 2013, there was a flaw in that there was no protection for underage models, and they were able to fix that. I thought in my mind, wow, this is going to be that moment in my career where people will look back and be like, remember that time that you did that thing? And I thought it was always going to be a positive reaction. My first photo shoot after that, I got a big round of applause at the shoot, and I was like, oh, this is it. This is how it will always be. And then one individual just jumped at me and was like, "What did you do? Who do you think you are? Because your career is falling, you thought you should destroy the rest." And the room didn't know how to react.
It hurts when you have stuff like that, where you realize you're not trying to be the whistleblower. You're just thinking that people would like to take care of their models and their children, and they didn't see it that way. I sometimes still have a hard time in rooms where people look at me like Goody Two-Shoes.
What are some of your professional goals for the future?
Coco Rocha, I'm assuming, is still working with the next generations, if it is Model Camp, if it's in other ways. Education in fashion is never going to die out. It evolves. It started off for models, assuming that's who wanted this information, and since then it has been all sorts of beautiful people coming in here with the intent of producing imagery in their businesses. We're at 5,000-ish models that have come through here. I would love to hear that number in the tens and the hundreds of thousands, to the point where the industry has slowly evolved into something far more beautiful than it is right now. We're on a good path and journey, but we need to go faster and quicker.
Coco Rocha's Full Biography
Coco Rocha was born on 10 September 1988 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She is an actress and producer, known for The Parent Trip (2019), Monster Management S/S 15 Models Film: Ill (2014) and Truly Zac Posen for David's Bridal (2013). She has been married to James Conran since 9 June 2010. They have three children.