Note To Self

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.