THEY SHOOT HORSES, DON’T THEY?
By Coco Rocha

To celebrate 25 years of British ELLE, I was invited to join them in their biggest editorial ever. The inspiration for the shoot was a 1969 Jane Fonda movie called “They Shoot Horses, Don’t they?”. The premise of the film and of the shoot was a depression era dance competition in which couples literally danced until they dropped, sometimes for days on end with little to no sleep.

The Elle team and I set up in a giant warehouse in Brooklyn to reenact this movie. For three days the other models and I pushed ourselves past the point of exhaustion to dance all day, every day in a space that was probably over 100 degrees in temperature. This was method acting at its finest as we were literally living the movie. The shoot was probably one of the most intense I’ve ever experienced, but the pictures that resulted were worth the effort. I was so thankful to have such an amazing group to work with. Anne-Marie Curtis the fashion director at Elle UK was wonderful and a genuinely sweet lady. Billy Brasfield and Rolando Beauchamp were on make-up and hair - both are masters at their craft and also two of the funniest men you’ll ever meet. They managed to keep everyone’s spirits up despite the heat and the exhaustion. I thank my dream-team from the bottom of my heart for making this shoot one I’m sure we will all never forget.

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