Coco Rocha is currently reporting on Fashion Week with Veronica Webb for public-television channel NYCtv Life; when we encountered her (and her entourage of cameramen) at the Arise African Collective show last night, she was looking longingly at the catwalk. “A year ago when I got to sit and watch most of the shows, it was a surreal feeling. But as much as it is fun sitting here, when the music starts I’m like, ‘I wish I was on that runway,’” she admitted. Rocha also finds herself defending the models when she overhears audience members discussing them: “Sometimes a girl will come out and people start to murmur, and you hear them say things, and you’re like, ‘Shh! Shut up! I’d like to see you try!’”
So what’s it like to be reporting on designers she used to model for? “Being treated as a reporter, they’re like, ‘Oh, she’s here! Let’s make this place look good.’ It makes me smirk — it’s funny.” Rocha is also in the process of designing her own line, Rococo, and she’s using her journalistic access to enhance her personal knowledge: “I find myself asking what it was like when they started, since I’m trying to start my own line,” she said, adding that some designers have been particularly helpful. “Zac Posen was very sweet and was like, ‘Come on down, I’ll explain things and show you things.’ His boyfriend as well. So that was super sweet. I was expecting a lot of people to be shaking their heads — and people are — but that just makes me want to prove myself even more.”
