14 DAY TRIAL // Coco Rocha is a gorgeous girl who weighs somewhere around 50kg. She’s also tall because she’s a model, and has been working as one since she was only 15 – she’s 21 now. However, she’s considered overweight by some fashion designers, who have repeatedly told her she needs to lose some weight, which she now refuses to do because she knows it wouldn’t be healthy for her, as the Telegraph informs.
As such, the fashion industry is starting to turn its back on her, which is obvious by the decreased number of offers she’s now receiving, Rocha tells the media. This is absurd, she insists, and should not be tolerated in any way. Rocha is a size 4 (size 6 by UK measurements) and is nowhere near fat, not even if compared to other models. Nevertheless, designers are telling her she has to lose some weight if she wants to work with them again, which is why she’s now stepping forward with her story.
“I’m not in demand for the shows anymore. I’ve been told to lose weight when I was really skinny,” the Canadian supermodel said in a recent interview cited by the Telegraph. Yet she will not compromise, not when her health is at stake. “Everybody knows that, in general, a basketball player needs to be tall and a fashion model needs to be skinny, but how skinny is too skinny? 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 I want a hamburger, I’m going to have one,” Rocha added.
In saying the above, Rocha joined a very short list of other models to speak out against the size 0 policy that is still being enforced by designers. “The fashion industry was supposed to have moved away from the trend of waif-like models following the deaths of Luisel Ramos and her sister Eliana Luisel, 22, who suffered a fatal heart attack during a fashion week in Uruguay in 2006. She had lived on a diet of green leaves and Diet Coke for three months in a bid to be ready for a catwalk show. Her model sister Eliana, 18, died from malnutrition six months later in 2007,” the Telegraph says.
This comes on the heels of the Ralph Lauren ads scandal, which brought to light a few promo shots featuring models so incredibly retouched that their heads seemed larger than their waist and who overall looked as if a gush of wind could have swept them away.