Coco Fan Tutte

Here is a sweet video made by some fans of Canadian supermod Coco Rocha, after Rocha invited video submissions from the readers of her Oh So Coco! blog. Considering that the eight week old blog already boasts 568 followers, it’s safe to assume that Rocha may have received quite a few. Rocha's brief: “I want to see YOU making movies of us”. It’s kind of hard not to like Rocha. She writes for, thanks and engages her fans – as opposed to penning tortured self-analysis. And she does not seem to take herself too seriously. She goofs it up. She hoofs it up Irish dancing. And perhaps most interesting of all, Rocha has managed to climb to the top of her profession without being hyper thin - indeed, even going public on the industry pressure to “look anorexic” and the retouching that is commonplace in fashion magazines. In many ways Coca Rocha is a kind of everywoman in an industry which excludes anyone who is not beautiful, tall, hyper thin – and, in western markets at least, predominantly white. Set to Britney Spears’ Piece Of Me paparazzi lament, the video was created by “olivercyyu”, who describes himself as a 16 year-old Canadian.

“A lot of time and effort has been put into this so please consider watching it” notes olivercyyu in the YouTube intro.

Intercut between still shots of Rocha and what look to be olivercyyu’s friends are a series of supers:

“What we think of modelling”

“Being a good role model”

“Can be a wacky way of expressing yourself”

“MODELS EAT!!!!!!”

“Doesn’t mean being SKINNY!”

“Modeling is for all races”

“COCO ROCHA, WE LOVE YOU!!!!!!”

“You are a great role model :)”

Well, they can dream.

And with the media and retail foundations of the fashion industry rattling in the wake of the world economy tailspin, it will be interesting to see just how many marketers are listening to them.