Coco Rocha believes social media has made fashion attainable.
The 28-year-old model credits the online platform for allowing models to express their own unique personality and therefore stop the fashion industry from being "unattainable and aspirational".
She said: "[Before social media], everything was hush-hush. The fashion industry was supposed to be a fantasy world that was unattainable and aspirational.
"And the model was part of that. You wouldn’t really know anything about her or her personality, and here I was trying to change that. It’s funny that some of the same people who told me I was ‘ruining the mystique’ at the time are now posting incessantly about what they ate for breakfast."
And Coco feels platforms like Twitter and Instagram have put the public back in charge of fashion and who steps onto the runway.
She added: "All of a sudden, readers and fans were letting the major brands and magazines know [via social media] who their favourite models were and who they wanted to see in images and on runways … I’m happy to see that happen to girls again."
There was a particular incident in May 2012 where a picture of Coco on the cover of Elle Brasil was airbrushed, making it appear as though she was baring more skin than she had agreed to. And Coco believes the existence of social media "gave her a voice" to speak out about what happened.
She told the April issue of Canada’s FASHION Magazine: "I could have left it alone; because when you tell people you don’t like something, that’s when they search for it the most. What do you do? Leave it alone and let most of Brazil see it or talk about it and then most of the world will see it? It was a hard decision, but we decided to post a response because I wasn’t proud of that cover.
"Imagine if you were walking down the street and all of a sudden someone came up to you and ripped off your shirt. I was making the same point. If that had happened in the early 2000s, I wouldn’t have been able to tell the world what I thought. Thanks to social media, I had a voice."
Coco Rocha: Social media has made fashion attainable
