Cou Cou Intimates

August 05, 2025

Cou Cou Intimates collection of delicate, pointelle intimates is beautiful. Moreover, it asks an important question: Who is beauty for? At times, it can feel like beautiful clothing is for anyone but the wearer, a performance more than a pleasure. But for Cou Cou Intimates founder Rose Colcord, loungewear and intimate clothing should celebrate comfort.

The story we've been told is, “It doesn't matter what your daily underwear looks like. What matters is the lingerie that is inherently performative and inherently voyeuristic,” says Colcord. “Cou Cou is about flipping that narrative. Every day, even if I'm not seeing anyone, it is still worth me feeling comfortable. Also, expanding that definition of comfort to being comfortable in ourselves.”

The Cou Cou Intimates brand isn’t just about being kind to yourself. It is also about being ethical and mindful of the world around us. All Cou Cou undergarments are made of 100% GOTS Certified Organic Cotton, and are completely compostable. Underwear is an item everyone needs multiples of, and not an item that we resell or repurpose as frequently. Cou Cou provides an alternative to that waste.

Interview by Sarah John
Photography by Mayan Toledano

Cou Cou Intimates collection of essentials and intimates provides comfort and polish, with pieces that emphasize softness and beauty. Taken together, the pieces celebrate how one feels, not just how one looks; and leave the wearer feeling truly confident. In this interview, Colcord talks garment life cycles, shifting perspectives, and playing dress-up.

Can you tell me about your proudest moment as founder of Cou Cou?

The clearest image that comes to my mind was this summer in New York, when we did our pop-up. It was our first ever physical experience of Cou Cou. I remember the night before I told my boyfriend, “What if no one shows up?” It feels so surreal, when it's not physical.

I showed up the next day, and there was a line around the block—that continued every day that we were there for the two weeks. It was a really proud moment. I worked on the design of the space with Kat Milne, a really talented designer, and we wanted to make a space that felt intimate, welcoming, and friendly. The space really represented the brand, and I also got to speak to some of the customers—I love speaking with real life customers.

Were there any customer stories that stood out to you?

Honestly, I think this validated to me that a lot of our customers are people that I would genuinely want to be friends with. I'd say about 50% of the customers in line were reading a book. We were always talking about what book they were reading, recommendations, and stuff like that.

But in terms of product and the brand, a key lesson for me was that people just want to try things on, and feel how things fit their body. We fit and develop our product on such a wide range of sizes, and we're a comfort led brand. But no matter how much you design with that intention, people still really want to try on. We want to do more in that space for our customers—to let them come and experience the product in person.

Tell me about your relationship to clothing growing up. What role did it play for you?

My relationship to clothing growing up is represented by one image in my mind: climbing trees. I used to love to climb trees, and the only clothes I cared about were the ones that let me climb trees. My cousins were very active boys. One of my most fun memories was climbing trees with them. So I think, growing up I always wanted functionality. But at the same time, my mom and my grandma got very dressed up. My nana was very much about putting yourself together and making an effort every day, even if you weren't seeing anyone. You would never catch her in sweatpants, my nana. So at the same time, I aspired to feeling put together.

I think in a way that actually kinda represents the brand that I've made today with Cou Cou. It blends this idea of functionality — pieces that enable you to live your life and do the things you want to do, whether it's climbing trees or being comfy at home with your favorite book — with feeling cute and put together.

What are your future plans or goals for Cou Cou?

I want Cou Cou to offer more opportunities for our customer to come and shop in-person, so that they can really experience the quality of the fabric and experience the fit. I think that's really important. Also, just wanting to create a space that's for our community. I'd love to one day have a store that's not just the store, but it's really like a community hub. It’s a space where we can host book club nights, have a little Cou Cou Talks library, etc. It’d really be a place where our community can kind of come together and make memories essentially.

How do you draw inspiration for the brand?

People have loved the nostalgia of our pointelle, which really became our signature fabric. Funnily enough, I think it represents the overall brand's nostalgia. It takes you back to being a kid—when you didn't care what people thought of you and didn't have a notion of how you appeared. You were just drawing, climbing trees, and painting. An aspiration is for me to work on more education around the importance of natural fibers, and particularly organic cotton, for female health. Also, on a wider lens. Some 2% of underwear is sustainably sourced. Not many people know that. That’s because basically, the majority of intimates have synthetics in the blend.

Even with a lot of brands that say that they use a 100% organic cotton, there's actually elastane in the blend of the fabric. Because your intimates are the ones that you're not gonna resell on Depop, it ends up just going in a landfill. So for me from the beginning of Cou Cou, it's really important that we thought about the whole life cycle of our intimates. We knew that we wanted to shift the mindset around the disposable mentality consumers have to their intimates and underwear, to something that's more conscious of the life cycle of that whole planet really.

What inspired Cou Cou Talks?

I see a lot of brands doing editorial platforms now, but it seems very obvious when that's more of an afterthought. Whereas Cou Cou Talks, honestly, I had that concept before I even finished developing the first product for Cou Cou. That's because, fundamentally, Cou Cou is a value-based brand. You know, I had no intention of starting a brand.

My grandma and my mom were always playing dress-up growing up, but I never thought I was gonna go and start a brand. I was applying to do my masters in philosophy, when I had the idea for the brand. It was really about creating this world I wanted to live in. I studied philosophy, with a focus on ethics and literature, which was about how we can explore topics of philosophy and ethics through storytelling. I really just saw the brand as another language for that. I do believe that brands have the power to shift cultural narratives. Bodies are political, and the brands that show bodies are intimate brands. They really set the kind of standard for what it means to look like a woman and what it means to look like a man. I really wanted to shift that. And for me, with Cou Cou Talks, the intention was to create this space of curiosity and highlight women that really represented the brand's values. Essentially, I wanted to explore the pieces of philosophy and literature, theory, art, film that shifted our perspective—what contributed to us becoming the brand that we are today.

What is something that surprised you in the process of making this brand?

That no one knows what they're doing. Like it's not just me. The people who say they know what they're doing are also just making it up. I didn't have any experience in marketing, branding, or even product development. I've used my intuition in terms of creating the world and the product that I love. Initially, you can feel a bit of Imposter Syndrome. But slowly but surely you realize that actually everyone's just making it up, which is nice.

Yeah. Of course. And tell me something more people should know about the path toward a sustainable future.

Like I said, there's a big piece in terms of education around the life cycle of all garments. Everyone's really mindful a lot of the time with buying vintage and secondhand. But, when it comes to our intimates, we really have this mindset of disposability. We are not willing to invest in slightly higher quality pieces. On a wider lens, I think that it's really like a lifestyle and a philosophy of conscious consumption and really asking, “Do I need this?” Everything that we've made, we ask, “Is this timeless? Is this seasonless? Do we feel this is a design that will surely stand the test of time?”

I read that you want to encourage customers to compost their underwear in the future. Is that true?

So, organic cotton, when you put it in the right kind of environment, can be composted. We're wanting to do an educational piece on how to properly compost the pointelles. I think something that I've spoken about before is that you don't really know what it's like to wear more elevated — especially organic cotton — underwear until you try it. I want to bridge this gap between lingerie and daily underwear, and everything that represents.

I have been thinking a lot recently about that morning process or ritual of picking your underwear. That acts like an intention for the day. Like, “Oh, I'll wear these ones because I'm not seeing anyone. I'm not doing anything special today.” But how do you really know? It’s only the beginning of the day. That's really the true philosophy: your most worn underwear should be your most loved ones too. Every day is worth wearing your favorites, not just special occasions. The story we've been told is, “It doesn't matter what your daily underwear looks like. What matters is the lingerie that is inherently performative and inherently voyeuristic. Cou Cou is about flipping that narrative. Every day, even if I'm not seeing anyone, it is still worth me feeling comfortable. Also, expanding that definition of comfort to being comfortable in ourselves. I think that you can tie that back to sensuality. I feel the brand's ready to delve more into and explore sensuality, because fundamentally as women, unless we feel confident and comfortable in ourselves, any sensuality is performative.

Fashion

Calvin Klein Collection Spring 2026: Intimacy in Frame

April 28, 2026

Veronica Leoni's sophomore collection for Calvin Klein Collection turns the Spring 2026 season into an extension of the brand's refined minimalism. The collection includes pinafore dresses, jackets with low-cut necklines and reinvented tailoring, all falling into soft, straight silhouettes. These clean lines are realised through silky fabrics and finishes reminiscent of nightwear, a visual extension of the brand's underwear.

Supported by a campaign of candid imagery, the new collection is captured mid-movement, in a moment between tangible and ethereal. Leoni says that beyond this feeling, “these images tell you who this woman is, how she wants to be seen, and how dressing is one of her most powerful tools for self-expression.” Launching April 28th, Calvin Klein's Spring 2026 collection is at its core about intimacy and self-expression.

Text by JohnOswald Crichton
Photography by Juergen Teller
Models Loli Bahia, Stella Hanan, Grace Knipe, Lauren Huyskens, Libby Taverner, Justi Aegitos, Xiru Yang, Bai Ruien, Diane Chiu, Ruyu Chen and Perus Adolwi

Fashion

PUMA x Ahluwalia

Ahluwalia is all about ethos. From sustainability to social responsibility, you’ve built a brand really grounded in its moral identity. How has this evolved over time?

Through my experience before I started my brand, reading about the state of the world, traveling, and seeing all these different experiences, I started to realize quite early on that if we're going to make clothes and create things, there are just better ways to do it. And so from the beginning, I've just tried to do things that are better for people on the planet, and create less waste, and make decisions through different parts of the process. It's not just about fabric and sourcing, but it's about who we work with and how we work with them, representation, and inclusion. [We do this] across the industry, in all different areas, with every business decision. For a lot of our set designs, we rent things rather than build things. If we've ever built things, we've then repurposed them. It’s about making decisions that keep people and the planet in mind.

This collection is described as a “love letter to African football culture.” What would the first sentence of that letter be?

I think I would say: “Africa is multifaceted.”

Africa is 54 countries, 56 if you count two that the UN doesn't, and it's a vibrant, vast, beautiful continent. I think that in so many different areas, Africa is not put on the pedestal that it deserves to be put on. With my work in general, this collection, and all my collections, I always want to grow my knowledge about the places that I'm from and the countries around where I'm from. It's vibrant. It's powerful. There's an abundance of joy, skill, and talent that I think that the world should pay more attention to.

The PUMA T7 tracksuit from 1979 has been worn by everyone from Pelé, Brazilian football legend, to Madonna, international popstar. It's one of those silhouettes that carries so much cultural memory. When you go into an archive like PUMA’s, how do you decide what should be reinterpreted versus left untouched?

There are parameters to these types of projects. If it was possible, I would love to have gone a lot wider, and pulled more pieces, because the archive was just honestly a treasure trove. I think it was one of my favorite experiences across my time of working with PUMA. I think it's been two years now I've been working with them, and that was definitely one of my favorite experiences. I think that the reason that I wanted to do a T7 is that it's so recognizable. And being able to work into an iconic tracksuit like that, an iconic shape that does have so much cultural capital and heritage is an opportunity. We’ll recognize that shape as a PUMA shape, but they'll recognize the fabrication as something that maybe feels a bit more Ahluwalia than the PUMA main line. So it’s an honor to be able to work into those heritage pieces.

Green appears on the flags of African nations more than any other color. What role did the color green play in this collection?

For me, the beginning of the design process was quite rooted in West Africa, particularly Nigeria. But I'm also Indian. Green is also on the Indian flag. So I kind of knew straight away I wanted green to be in it, just to represent really. Also, because I was researching different elements and looking at fans from different countries, green was so prevalent. But also, green, red, black, yellow, are quite Pan-African colors. And so I knew that I wanted to work with those colors quite a lot. And I thought, I'm really happy with the trainer. We have two colorways, and I knew I wanted one of them to be green. And I thought, people who are from the global south will feel the colors in it, everyone's gonna love the colors! People can wear it no matter where they're from, but I do feel like there is a shared understanding of that color scheme, and it was kind of an homage to that. It works as a detail, but yeah, it was definitely a key.

I’m really intrigued by the fact that the jacquard in this collection is meant to mimic the look of a stadium filled with cheering fans. How did you approach the process of translating an experience so kinetic and loud into a static textile?

The fabric has been woven into that pattern [rather than] printed with ink. It’s a slightly different texture, and it has depth to it, right? The surface is not entirely flat. Basically, what we did was, we took photos of fans in the stands of different games at different scales, and then sort of pixelated them and made them three color. We played with the scales of them and made a kind of tapestry. And then we turned it into the shades of red and black. When you look at the fabric, because it's a Jacquard and not print, it's got this almost static. The sound was static. You can kind of see that. And that's how we sort of translated it. I wanted it to be a fabric that's beautiful to wear. It definitely feels like there's movement within it, because the different knitted stitches are so small and varied in color that it feels like when you look at the fabric, it moves.

What kickstarted your love for fashion, and what keeps you there?

I've always loved fashion since I was really young. My mom was always very into what she wore and was always really well dressed. And I always found that I loved trying on her clothes, and I loved going with her shopping and things like that. I liked watching her get ready to go out. She always wore three red lipsticks every day. She doesn't wear that anymore, but she used to wear red lips every day and have a big blowout. And I found that quite exciting. And I used to live above my granddad's news agent, and he would order me whatever magazines I ever asked for. So he would order me all the fashion magazines. And then on the weekends I'd get to read them. He’d order me i-D and Vogue and Dazed and all these different magazines. And I was, I've always been quite a bookworm. I read them from quite a young age. So I think I was just instantly attracted to that when I was thinking of picking up magazines within the stores. Both of those things really kick-started it. I kind of always knew this was what I wanted to do. Actually, I don't really remember wanting to do much else. I went through a phase of wanting to be a vet, but it made me really sad. So I went back to fashion.

Fashion

HEAD GOLF: From Structure to Freedom

April 24, 2026

HEAD GOLF’s SS 2026 collection reflects a quiet transition from structure to freedom. Rather than relying on predictable sporting imagery, this collection centers on atmosphere and interaction. The brand invites a broader and more cultural perspective on golf, suggesting that it can belong to architects, designers, founders, thinkers and individuals who value aesthetics, detail, and sense of individuality as much as performance. By reframing golf through a softer, more human lens, the campaign unfolds space for new narratives and new participants. It is not about redefining golf loudly, but about allowing it to feel contemporary, creative, and quietly alive.