CORA CORRE

CORA CORRÉ, No Shorthand

JUST LIKE

CORA

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Photography by BENN JAE. Words by SOLANGE SMITH
Creative Direction by HEATHERMARY JACKSON. Styling by DELANEY WILLIAMS. Hair by SKY CRIPPS-JACKSON. Makeup by BARI KAHLIQUE

The Jesus and Mary Chain’s Just Like Honey opens with ‘Listen to the girl’, and here we are.

I remember finding comfort in things that followed a structure. Equations, chessboards, the moment when you

finally understand how to read a score and place the right fingers on the piano keys. You learn a few rules and suddenly it feels as though the whole world opens up. Once you understand how one part works, the rest begins to make sense, not because it is simple but because it is legible. It’s also worth saying that this is where rebellion is born, where prophets, intellectuals and outlaws first become martyrs and then saints, because once you understand how something works, you can also decide whether to accept it, and eventually whether to change it.

Every now and then you meet someone who makes everything feel a little less chaotic. Not because they are predictable, but because being close to them gives you a point of reference, like finally learning a small equation that helps you recognise the shape of everything else. You don’t know all the answers, but you know where to start solving. Being with her is like receiving that first equation that allows you to begin seeing the world from another angle. Some would be thinking of family, some of a Stone Roses song, some of their boyfriend. One evening last October, I met, on the terrace of the Hotel Muniria in Tangier, a woman for whom this “something” were the films of Michelangelo Antonioni. Obviously, for many of us one of the main interpretative grammars of our existence is, without a doubt, friendship.

This is how Cora shows up for me. Someone I can call if I have a problem, and who turns up an hour later for a coffee wearing a Jesus and Mary Chain T-shirt, but at the same time someone who points me towards an unfamiliar path, a move on the chessboard of life I hadn’t considered. Being both a question and an answer at the same time, when you’re referring to a human being, does not necessarily lead to an impasse.

I’ve watched how she pays attention to the smallest details; heard her speak about those who came before her; about growing up inside fashion with a political charge to it and learning how to carry that with care. And how she carries that lineage into her own work as a model and activist without turning any of it into a badge.

One morning I went to an appointment in Soho, which I was late for because I stopped to buy cigarettes and coffee, a bad habit of mine. On my way back home, I took the Bakerloo line and realised I could probably measure my emotional stability by how I behave on the tube. Whether I let someone take my seat even if they are shoving everyone, or silently judging a man eating crisps at 8:43 in the morning, or whether I meet a stranger's gaze and keep eye contact. I can swing from deeply awkward to surprisingly unaware within the space of two stops. Kierkegaard would probably call this repetition, the way you think you’re moving on when you’re really just meeting the same habits from slightly different angles. I finally arrived home, dropped my bags and rushed out again. When Cora saw me arrive, slightly frantic, she laughed and, honestly, I forgot why I’d been feeling a bit shaken after the midday journey.

We popped into the corner shop to get some beers. I briefly considered buying a drink I don’t even like because the label looked convincing. Branding seems to be just peer pressure with better fonts. But she knew exactly what she wanted, grabbed it and was already halfway back to the counter while I was still trying to figure out my own choice.

I remember finding comfort in things that followed a structure. Equations, chessboards, the moment when you

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We walked towards the park with the beers in our hands, the city kindly granted us with sun and light. For a moment she walked ahead, then slowed down without making it obvious, matching her pace to mine. We found a patch of grass not yet claimed by a picnic or a couple making out against a tree and sat down with the beers between us. She settled into the space with the ease of someone who feels at home in her body, and I had that familiar moment of noticing how her presence makes you more aware of your own posture, the small ways you carry yourself through the day without ever really paying attention to them.

We talked about love in the way you do once you’ve had to revise your beliefs a few times; about how it convinces you that you’re acting freely while, without realising it, you begin to move through the world with slightly different habits and expectations, a new inner weather system that colours things you thought weren’t connected. About how you can be brave in public and, at times, less composed in private, and how both versions of you end up belonging to the same story. We laughed about the patterns we recognised, the parts of ourselves we’ve learned to welcome with more patience than in the past. There was something reassuring in the way she spoke about connection as a practice rather than a performance, as something you grow into through attention rather than intensity.

Over the years I’ve seen Cora in different contexts: parks, meeting rooms, cafés, crowded corners of parties. The context changes but she doesn’t. She has a way of making you more honest with yourself without demanding a performance in return. Friendship shows you someone’s edges; asking them questions lets you glimpse the centre.

When I was asked to interview my dear friend, I felt genuinely honoured. It made me realise how much I still wanted to learn about her and from her.

So when we spoke again,

I started from the beginning.

When I was asked to interview my dear friend, I felt genuinely honoured. It made me realise how much I still wanted to learn about her and from her.

So when we spoke again,

I started from the beginning.

SOLANGE SMITH I know we’re friends, but there’s still so much I would like to discover about you. I wanted to start right at the beginning. When you think about being a child, what’s a memory that still sits with you?

CORA CORRÉ My most poignant memory is from when I was probably four to eight, when my parents had just set up Agent Provocateur and were very hands-on before the business expanded, and they continued to be very hands-on. On Saturday mornings my dad would typically go and do DIY and maintenance on the London-based stores, mostly in Soho, and my mum would be out shopping for furniture to furnish upcoming stores, and I would choose which parent I wanted to spend the day with.

A really fond memory of mine is that my favourite dumpling was char siu buns, which is a Chinese dim sum dish. My dad would take me to Chinatown and we’d go to this bakery and he’d get me a giant char siu bun, which was bigger than my face as a distraction. Then we’d go over to the shop on Broadwick Street, just by Berwick Street and Wardour Street, which was actually their first shop, and I would hang around there and enjoy myself. So that’s a very big London-based, Soho-orientated memory for me.

I just remember being brought up in a household of confident women.

SS You grew up around Agent Provocateur and a lot of very confident women. Did that influence how you thought about femininity or power growing up, or did it only register later?

CC When you grow up around something, everything is relative. It was just my normal. I definitely look back now at the time when they built the business together and what it turned into while they still owned it, and I look at that period with much older and more mature eyes now.

But when you’re young you don’t frame it that way. It didn’t really funnel into the lingerie aspect or the idea of being sexy in the way people assume. I just remember being brought up in a household of confident women. A lot of the brand came from what my mum felt made her feel powerful and strong, almost like she was wearing armour every day, even though it wasn’t something that was exposed.

SS When you went to high school, did you feel like you saw things differently from other people because of that upbringing?

CC If anything, through my teen years I probably had my own form of rebellion in relation to my family and their creativity and how well dressed they all were and continue to be. I think I wanted the opposite in a funny way. I remember wanting a push-up bra at 11 from some different shop that existed.

I was 10 when my parents decided to sell the company, which didn’t go through for a few years, and people often say, “You must have grown up with such sexy lingerie”, and if you think about the timeline that doesn’t really make sense. In the past five years, as I’ve learned more about myself and found myself outside of those teenage years of rebellion, things have come full circle. I love wearing beautiful lingerie under my clothing now, and I’ve collected a lot of vintage AP pieces. But it wasn’t something that defined me as a teenager.

I just remember being brought up in a household of confident women.

SS You grew up around Agent Provocateur and a lot of very confident women. Did that influence how you thought about femininity or power growing up, or did it only register later?

SS When you went to high school, did you feel like you saw things differently from other people because of that upbringing?

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SS What held your attention at school? Were there subjects or teachers that really stayed with you?

CC I always performed better with stricter teachers. I definitely did better under pressure. I was really interested in philosophy, religion and ethics, and my school allowed us to explore those subjects on a more moral basis rather than being religious-driven in class, which I appreciated.

I loved debating, and I was a really avid reader until I was about 11. I read a lot of books very young, and rereading them now feels completely different. I read The Catcher in the Rye when I was 10 or 11, which is quite mad, and reading it again recently felt like reading a different book entirely.

SS When you were younger, did you imagine yourself in a completely different world?

CC I was really interested in human rights and human rights law from quite a young age. Then I remember someone saying to me, “You’ll never earn money being a human rights lawyer”, and I took that very literally. I remember setting out this quite intense plan when I was about 10 or 11, thinking I’d become a commercial lawyer first, then have my kids, and then once my kids were older I’d go back and do human rights law and live out that dream.

Looking back, I think that came from absorbing what was happening in the world around me at the time, like when we went to war in Iraq. Now it all makes more sense to me, how much I absorbed and how that shaped me.

SS I’ve always noticed how naturally you seem to carry responsibility. Do you think that started when you were growing up around such strong people?

CC I’m an only child and I was an only grandchild for a long time, and because of that I was treated like an adult quite early. In some ways, growing up with that level of responsibility can feel heavy when you’re young, but I’m really grateful for it now.

Even as a five-year-old, I was encouraged to be part of adult conversations, to listen, to ask questions, and to be listened to. I was given space to form my own ideas around what I was exposed to at home and elsewhere, rather than just absorbing what the adults around me thought.

I went everywhere with my parents. I’d go to my grandmother’s shows and then to dinners afterwards, and I learned how to exist in rooms full of adults from a very young age. Looking back, I feel really fortunate in how open that learning path was, and I now see that as something I was lucky to have.

SS Whenever you talk about the foundation, it never feels like an obligation. What does being part of it mean to you personally?

CC The Vivienne Foundation was set up in 2019 to formalise my grandmother’s activism and to use her platform as an established fashion designer to raise awareness around lots of different issues. We all worked on it together before her death, which was really beautiful.

I’m trying to navigate how to distribute the work she left behind in a way that feels sensitive and thoughtful. Her first foundation project was intended to be one of many and sadly ended up being her last, so we really want to take the time to work out how best to carry that forward.

At the same time, I know she would be telling all of us to get on with it, especially with everything happening in the world, so we’ve been supporting smaller grassroots organisations in the meantime while we work out how best to approach the larger structure of the foundation.

SS What held your attention at school? Were there subjects or teachers that really stayed with you?

SS When you were younger, did you imagine yourself in a completely different world?

SS I’ve always noticed how naturally you seem to carry responsibility. Do you think that started when you were growing up around such strong people?

SS Whenever you talk about the foundation, it never feels like an obligation. What does being part of it mean to you personally?

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SS From what I’ve seen, you give so much of yourself to your family in a really beautiful way. I relate to that a lot because I love being around my own family, but it does take time and care to hold that. Do you feel yourself wanting to make space for something that’s just yours as well?

CC I really want to take time to work out what I’d like to do for myself, separate from the foundation. I don’t fully know what that is yet, but I feel excited about having the space this year to work on myself and to start understanding what I’d like to build.

SS You’re always either everywhere or completely vanished, which I weirdly relate to. How does social media actually sit with you now?

CC Social media feels quite broken to me. I think it can be amazing, but I’m also very aware of how it becomes a negative tool in the way people look at these shiny, polished squares of other people’s lives and start to compare themselves to what’s being presented.

I have really bad ADHD, so my relationship with it is very fleeting. I go through phases where I’m present on Instagram for a while and then disappear completely. I’ve learned that I’m not hugely affected by it because I don’t attach myself to it in a very deep way, but at the same time I’m very conscious of how much it can affect people more generally.

For me, it’s quite nice to be able to dip in and out, to see what my friends are doing and feel happy for them, even though I’m terrible at replying to messages and keeping up with everything. But I do think the whole structure of social media is complicated, and it holds both really positive and really damaging things at the same time.

SS You always seem to either be fully out in the world or completely tucked away. Are you very all or nothing like that in general?

CC Yeah, completely. I’m either fully there or I’m fully hibernating. I’ll pop my head out, do one thing, and then people think I’m seeing a million people and I’m not. I’ll just go back home again and disappear. I’m very much an at-home hermit, even though it probably doesn’t look like that on my Instagram.

I honestly love getting into bed and scrolling on eBay, Depop and Vinted.   I add things to my basket and then get distracted and never actually purchase them.

S What does being at home look like for you when you’re really letting yourself switch off?

CC I honestly love getting into bed and scrolling on eBay, Depop and Vinted.   I add things to my basket and then get distracted and never actually purchase them.

SS (laughing) You’re the person I imagine every time I see “someone has this in their basket” and start panicking.

CC I’m panicking too, but I never actually check out. The final step just never happens. Then I’ll go back and click on something and see it’s sold, and I’ll fall into this whole spiral of trying to find it somewhere else online, even though I clearly didn’t want it that badly in the first place. That’s just how my brain works.

SS When you’re at home, do you listen to much music? Are there any bands or artists you find yourself going back to?

CC Honestly, I get so distracted that I don’t even really listen to music properly most of the time. And when I do, I tend to play the same song on repeat over and over. That’s very much how I listen to things. I have a piano playlist that I go back to.

Growing up, music was always around me. My stepdad, who you’ve met, used to make me incredible playlists and iPods for my birthdays and Christmas, and my dad has always had a love for vinyl. I was really privileged and fortunate to have music around me growing up, in this background way.

Because of that, I think I still haven’t really gone on my own journey of discovering my own personal favourites yet. It’s all there somewhere, but I’m still figuring out what that looks like for me.

SS Before we wrap, tell me about the shoot you did last week. I loved seeing those images come through.

CC It was amazing. We shot at this location, which was the old waiting room above Peckham Rye station, which I didn’t even know existed. The team was so lovely, and it was just one of those days where everything felt easy. I left with such a happy feeling, feeling really held by the people around me and excited about

SS I love that team so much. Everyone is so kind and so talented, and it really shows in the work. I'm excited for people to see it.

CC I'm so excited too, I love you

SS I adore you and love you. Thank you so much for this, lets cut it before I get off on a tangent and go on forever haha.