Courtesy Coco Rocha
Meet supermodel (and star of ‘The Face’) Coco Rocha, who’s sharing her experience filming the high-stakes modeling competition on Oxygen. Rocha, Karolina Kurkova and Naomi Campbell each select four girls to compete on their team, with losing teams submitting models for elimination each week. In her second blog, Rocha explains why she questions Campbell’s behavior and why mean models rarely “make it.”
This week’s episode begins with Christy (Team Karolina) making obnoxious remarks. She ignorantly claims Stephanie (Team Coco) needs to “work out every day.” There’s no such thing as one perfect body type, just like there isn’t just one ideal skin or eye color.
One thing that does make or break a model’s career is her attitude, and this girl has a horrible one. At the end of the day the only thing you can’t work off at the gym is an ugly personality. With very few exceptions, mean girls do not make it in my industry.
“She Won Fair and Square:” The 60-sec. test shoot involves striking as many usable poses possible while modeling eyewear. I teach the challenge, showing the girls my “160 poses in 60 seconds” routine – they get the idea that it’s OK to let go.
Team Coco does fairly well, but I’m really impressed with Madeline and Devyn from Team Karolina. Zi Lin never once thinks to actually put the glasses on her head and Sandra ends up with hair across her face in almost every shot. I later realize all of Team Naomi are in the bottom three and it was me who put them there. This will go over well.
Madeline wins in the end. I think she was genuinely surprised I didn’t pick a Team Coco girl, but she won fair and square.
Naomi’s Actions Speak Louder than Words: The fighting on Team Naomi reaches epic proportions. Sandra threatens physical violence against Jocelyn, and Miss Campbell herself has to come mediate. Naomi says that she cares about the girls and that’s why she “went ballistic over losing Alexandria” to Karolina last week.
She then tells Sandra off for, well, “going ballistic” this week. “You cannot take things personally sometimes. You have to learn to brush it off,” she says, and at this point I suppose it’s too much to ask for a flashback to Naomi taking it very personally last week with Karolina. At the end of the day the moral of Team Naomi’s dilemma is this: You lead by words and actions.
When Pillow Fights Get Serious: The team challenge this week is a lingerie commercial for Cosabella. Each girl is to portray sexy, sweet or conservative. I’m the only coach without any experience modeling lingerie (one of the things I’ve decided not to do in my career), but as a woman I know how I like to be sold lingerie and I have no doubt I can lead my team to win. Karolina calls me a “bossy” coach; I’m not their cheerleader, I’m their coach, so I coach! My team does extremely well.
Team Naomi doesn’t mesh well on set, but end the shoot with a lighthearted pillow fight. Great idea. Wait — my team actually did the pillow fight first, but for some reason it was cut from this episode. Imitation is flattery; a little credit is nice, too!
The representative from Cosabella announces to the dismay of everyone on set that day that Team Naomi won. I didn’t see it, but that was his choice and unfortunately that’s the reality of this business. The client decides.
Nice Girls Finish First: When it comes time for elimination I’m heartbroken. Ugly tears and all. My only choice is to send Stephanie to fight her case against Christy. After all the nasty Stephanie-bashing Christy did, it’s Stephanie who’s saved and Christy who goes home. Don’t you love it when nice girls win in the end?
Will that be the theme of this show? We shall see…
Watch next week as our models navigate an enormous staircase for a live audience, while wearing huge bridal gowns. Some will rise to the occasion, while others will fall from grace.
