Fashion Neurosis with Alexa Chung

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1:06Hi, come in.

1:13Welcome to Fashion Neurosis, Alexa Chung. Thanks for having me. Can you tell me what you're wearing today and why you chose these particular clothes? Yeah, I'm wearing an outfit from Miu Miu. Mrs. Prada is one of my favorite designers. and I love this particular look because it feels like it treads the balance between something almost perverse in the leather and the cut out keyhole then the colors are so joyful and fun and I sort of I was thinking about the framing of this show actually and I was like how do I want to look in that picture and so I kind of dressed for the image more than the feeling I think yeah Yeah.

2:02And how about the shoes? The shoes are like a patent leather high heel. And lately, or at least in the last couple of years, I've kind of, I've wanted to dress more sexy. So now I'm actively trying to look more womanly, more alluring, something. As I say, to me, it's now funny to dress in a more kind of kinky way because I think I'm more associated with like dungarees and smock tops and a slightly more sexless, tomboyish vibe. So it's been amusing to me to like lean into a more grown-up, seductive thing. because the tights very kind of classic sexual woman the sheer the smoky leg yeah it's very good very Catherine Deneuve it's interesting that thing of getting you know getting more into your sexual side the way you dress getting older especially being quite tomboyish because um I always I mean I never really dress very sexily but tomboy for me is very sexy I agree yeah and you're a presenter a model a designer a writer and a photographer every don't know about photographer but I enjoy it yeah and you're the focus of um many people's obsession and I wondered how your introvert extrovert barometer is that's interesting because I do think I'm quite shy sometimes um and like even this morning I went to my local deli and I'm friends with the guy that runs it and as he was talking I tried to um lean on a tree and then I missed the tree and sort of like cocked that up and then I went bright red and I was like oh my god still embarrassable yeah But then presenting, because I started doing that so young, it was really important.

4:15I think good broadcast journalists are completely themselves. And that's why presenting an on-camera work is quite intimidating sometimes for actors who are used to a script or being completely un-themselves. I think the camera doesn't lie at all. So if you aren't entirely comfortable, it can just totally tell. She says feeling slightly uncomfortable now. But yeah, presenting though meant that I became the most confident person in that aspect. But it did sort of start taking its toll. definitely there was adrenaline that was suppressed on those more live TV moments because I hosted like a talk show for a while in the US and that's so demanding and yeah quite draining you know dealing with other people's energy and you don't want to get it wrong and you need to kind of draw out the best most entertaining stories so you're kind of always there ready to catch the ball and kind of make it better but clothes definitely I would utilize to like bolster my self-confidence and to make sure I felt the right way in the right environment and um my style evolved out of that I think because my first jobs on tv I really needed to feel super comfortable and extra myself and so I refused almost to dress up for the camera and so I would wear jeans or jumpers or Mary Jane shoes and Peter Pan collars and things that I would naturally have on on a Saturday morning anyway rather than like dressing up for TV yeah yeah instead of being more formal just because you're being on TV and Zadie Smith said people here treat beauty as antithetical to intelligence and I wonder do you temper with what is clearly your intellectual agility and your cleverness um I think that I think I started out as a model and I still kind of hold on to that um as the baseline in a way like in terms of something to kick against because even though obviously I've got older and that's no longer as relevant um I was desperate for people to focus on what I was saying and I was always trying to get the best joke in or whatever and I feel like beauty can interrupt that and so it became something to play with for sure but that more tomboy style or kind of not doing yourself down but refusing to amp up my looks and refusing to lean into beauty or elegance or glamour was um a kind of way to get people to take me more seriously I guess do you think people were threatened by your your intelligence and that they wanted you to just be beautiful and that that's quite kind of I mean it's quite sort of challenging when what you know is a good feature that you have that has to be sort of contained in a way but but yeah I don't think I ever thought of myself as beautiful because for sure modeling really knocks out of you quite quickly just in terms of you know you have a literal paycheck at the end of the month which is a way to gauge how gorgeous you were that you know it's kind of and there always were other girls that I was modeling with who would book jobs for underwear or would book jobs for um kind of yeah sexier things and I was always booked for the sort of teen things and I think that's also to do with having a personality and wanting to that was people-pleasy and wanting to have fun and joyful things so I would be the one that was up for you know running in the lake or jumping on the trampoline I was quite easy to work with in that way but I wasn't getting the like sexier demure seductive roles so I kind of came to associate myself with the other thing also fashion is and modeling is so not about beauty half the time it's about a look that someone wants but I think what was important as well to me was after years of wearing whatever someone else's vision of me was when it when I got a job on tv and could dress however I wanted I relished it it was such a there was such freedom in that and I for sure didn't want to look like anyone else I was like my worst nightmare was following trends or looking like everyone and at the time that I started on a show called pop world yeah the kind of general trend was a lot more um it was like bandage dresses and um kind of Roland Marais and not to not to say that's not a great look but I I didn't see myself in that and I I sort of the people that I was romanticizing and wanted to be like were like Jean Shrimpton or Julie Christie um or I had this book called Five Girls by Sam Haskins and I just thought I thought god I fucking love the 60s I just really missed the boat and I want to you know I want to be Anita Pallenberg and I want to be um Jane Birkin and I want to you know I just loved Patti Smith as well like denim and um flat shoes and this kind of um yeah I just thought everyone in the early 2000s I just didn't get the look I just didn't understand it whereas as soon as I happened upon all these images of the past I was like fuck yeah that's it they look so fucking cool because they're not trying too hard but they also look really seductive and um rock and roll and messy and I don't know it just seemed cooler because you're a brilliant dresser and wearer of clothes and when you get ready for a look do you think about a character or a look yeah sometimes a character definitely for the more for more like fashion events then I'll lean into a character but day to day it comes from how I want to feel and I always assemble my outfit in the shower while I'm in the shower I think about how I want to feel that day or how or I think about how I am feeling that day because some days I have more masculine days and other days I have more gentle days those are rarer I'd say um how come I don't know I was kind of like the other day I went to an event and I thought oh I actually feel quite soft today and gentle and I want to wear a kind of prairie dress and something really pretty and white and I want to look like I'm in picnic at hanging rock plus 20 years yeah um but I you know I had to wear trainers because that was the job so I was so I wore a suit in the end because I was trying to figure out the proportions of these trainers and how to make them look good um so sometimes it's problem solving and the job and the type of work that I do might mean I'm kind of obligated to wear a particular item and then I'm building something around that to facilitate it um whereas other times you know you might buy an item and then get really excited about putting it on and so retrofit something to make that work I'll be like oh my god I really want to wear those shoes so I'll wear jeans so you don't start your outfit always with something like I start with a shoe do you sort of that same thing of how do I want to feel I I want to feel courageous and a shoe a heel will help me have this kind of great line internal line that makes me feel kind of intrepid but I think that's why I like Mrs.

12:47Prada's designs because it's that it's there's a beauty and there's a line to it there's also playing with assumptions and I actually really like outfits that I find funny to myself if if you see what I mean. Like, I'm like, okay, they're going to expect me to be like this. So instead I'm going to dress against type because that's amusing to me. Yeah. But to break the rules, you have to know them first. So at least your own ones. At least your own ones. Yeah. And so I think that's why it's funny to do cosplay as like a sexy adult woman because in my mind it is cosplay. So I'm like, that's not necessarily how I feel, but it's like a wink.

13:29also it's a good way to experiment just sort of casually because you have more kind of playful agency within that exactly and I think things should be playful like clothes I think fashion can seem intimidating to people outside of it in a way even going into a shop just to look at things or whatever it might be but actually um clothes are what I like I don't necessarily love fashion I love actual individual items and I'll become obsessed with like an Aaron knit and I'll be like oh I've got to try and find the perfect Aaron knit or I mean I spent a lifetime trying to find the perfect jeans still um but yeah I think it's I think of fashion as just like storytelling and and a passion for individual items yeah and do you remember that doesn't really make any sense but no no it does it does because it I was going to ask you do you remember the first time you found a piece of clothing that made you feel different how how old were you because it's part of this identity really isn't it this thing is represents what I could be somehow I think I always loved uniforms actually weirdly actually I think it's the other way around I think because I'm from a small village and that had its own look like everyone was in barbers and whatever and you know my dad was Chinese and my mum's English and already from the get-go we were different and I was different and I definitely didn't see anyone on TV or in any kind of pop culture that I was consuming I didn't see anyone that was like me at all and it wasn't that I was uncomfortable with that at all it was more that I was already different enough so I think I really liked uniforms I loved my school uniforms so much and I loved my ballet outfits and horse riding outfits and I loved all the gear you know um but then I also wasn't afraid to be different because I already was so at school I didn't ever want the same shoes as anyone else which is obviously quite tricky because there's only so many options when it came to school so as soon as someone else had the same trainers for PE or something I'm like oh no I need I have to get different ones my mom would be like no you literally just got these um and I had a record bag I remember which I thought was really cool um that my brother had given me and it had like this grass on it that I thought was like a plant or something nature and it was cannabis and so everyone all the older kids at school when I was 11 and rocked up with that they were like hey cool bag man and I was like thanks but I thought it was like a that's so sweet yeah do you ever have any good fashion dreams I don't really have any good fashion dreams no I can't you were a dreamer you you you mentioned you had quite a lot of vivid dreams oh So, yeah, I do have vivid dreams.

16:53I mean, I've had really intense dreams before. I don't want to sidetrack this other anecdote, but I dreamt about the tsunami for years. Really? And then I was in it. And it was where my dream completely met my reality. And it was really freaky. You were there? Yeah. I was in Thailand. Wow, God, I didn't know that. Yeah, I was, I think, either 19 or 20. I was really young and I was on holiday with my boyfriend for Christmas. And then, yeah, the sea kept going out every day, like further out. And I was like, so weird because the sea in the picture when I booked this place or I chose it was right up against our kind of the stilts of our cabin.

17:37But now it keeps being further away. And we just didn't know that was like a warning sign, basically. but the years preceding that I'd always had this dream that I was still on the edge of a cliff type thing or a hill and I was with a man with a beard and I looked back at something and it was a huge wave coming in and then I looked back at this man and then I just woke up and when the tsunami happened I ran away and so did my boyfriend we just ran to safety and then we found each other at the top of this hill and I looked at him and then I looked at the sea and it was coming in and I looked back at him and then I just went and I just started screaming god I was like fuck this is the moment I wake up so terrifying horrific it's his therapy you've described having complicated feelings about your body when you were modeling and do you think do you think hang-ups about our bodies are catalysts for how we reveal or hide our qualities yeah I mean I think I think it was less it was less straightforward than uh kind of you know obviously modeling in the olden days you just simply had to be rail thin and really tall whereas now it's amazing there's so much more diversity in that way and there is more of an emphasis on personality as well yeah um but for me it was about like you know i'd go for a job in japan and they'd be like oh your hips are too big or you know a beauty job and your ears are too big whatever it was always the feedback was always so clunky and like horrible um whereas now i'm like really proud of myself I definitely that's come with age yeah um and I yeah I if anything my boyfriend would say I sort of walk around being like check me out it's great that because I found that after I after I had a baby I thought oh my god this body it's fantastic it produced that it's really useful yeah and my obsession with what was wrong with it started to diminish but that's also the magic of clothes and if you're talking about concealing and uncovering that tension is what makes getting dressed quite interesting and I think a lot of my style and the clothes that I put together come from an understanding of proportion and the kind of way to flatter my particular shape which is why I find prescriptive required But like when people say, you know, give us advice on this or that in an interview or something, I can't give anyone advice on how to get dressed because mine is only suited to me and my physicality.

20:35Yes. Yeah. And it also changes with trends, of course, whereas before I used to love the kind of heady slumé and everything tight and tiny. then of course fashion changed and everyone was exploring like larger silhouettes and as someone with quite small shoulders I really love the kind of oversized man coat thing um but again it's always about playing with uh that tension between what's there and what's not I think that's a real talent and you you obviously have it because you do that so so ingeniously the way you you play with your outfits and they're so beautiful you know you you're so good at it and you're often described as an it girl and it seems a very short word to describe how how huge your repertoire repertoire is really funny that's exactly right repertoire because it is like a hammy cabaret no not at all you're you have so much scope and you have a lot of accomplishments and and in your book your your writing your musings and your poetry which I really liked um it was really good and your references are always very witty and surprising and wondered why you called it it I called it it sort of as a joke um because we didn't know what to call it and we kept referring to it as it and then I was like let's just call it it because then it's a play on words as well because I am was at the time sometimes it's called an it girl obviously there's a Stephen King film called it as well which is a shame also apparent I read that the where the term came from in the 20s was to describe someone of uh surprising um magnetic qualities or something and I thought yeah that's cool you definitely have that I do think it's interesting work is it I always thought it girl or when I think about it girls that I admire it's even though it seems to kind of demean them in a way I think that's right it's a conduit of it's a way to explain someone that exists beyond the parameters of what we know about at that particular moment in time and it's like they've surpassed this moment or they're bringing something in that's beyond from the beyond or something because when I I asked the writer friend of mine about you and he said she has this intelligence and she sees things she's like a spy she's keeping something under wraps and I wondered what you are keeping hidden that you'd like to reveal more of oh my god I think once they did a shoot with um Lucinda Chambers and I said what are we going to do for that shoot and she said you know what I sort of see you as a I'm going to make you like Charlie Chaplin I want you to be like a sort of sad clown and I was like that is it like I think actually I love humor and um wit and I really appreciate funny people but I think sometimes people don't get is that humor only comes from also really understanding like sadness yeah and I'm actually like a super nostalgic person I'm quite I'm I'm sort of quite serious but I think people don't really get that bit necessarily yeah because I was um you know you're very witty and funny and and I wondered if you used humor to deflect people getting close to you oh 100 a thousand percent I can definitely put it in autopilot that's just sort of not necessarily gags but like I can really like prattle on but for sure yeah I think Tom would say the person he knows isn't necessarily the one that other people consume because it's like a self-consciousness I watch you talking or and you're onto something and then you suddenly throw it away.

25:02And, I mean, it's always brilliantly done, but it's a sort of guardian against, like, I'm not going to show you anymore. Yeah, maybe, yeah. And when you were 21, you starred in this brilliant TV short form called Shoot Me. And it's so funny. and this young girl coming to London, starting a modeling career. And you're really good at acting and a natural comedian. And did you write that as well? No, I didn't. And oh, my God, I think you're the first person to have uncovered that ever. Oh, it's so, I mean, it's genius. And also, it seems so modern, the shortness. Yeah, it's got a bit of a fleabag vibe to it.

25:48Yeah, yeah. I did it I auditioned for that and I had no um say in how it was written it was like kind of I think potentially I don't want to you know um besmirch the character of whoever put it together but I think it might have been a bit of an opportunity for these dudes to hang out with models but it was kind of skewering the industry and it was about a young girl who comes to London from the countryside who's tomboyish and becomes a model um and it had some quite funny cameos in it yasmila bonds in it um it was really fun to do and i think at that time i was so again it was so fun i did a lot of tv adverts as well around then i just absolutely loved any moment that wasn't modeling anything that was more freeing and playful and um oh yeah actually after the tsunami thing because I was quite unhappy at that time modeling I didn't enjoy it at all I decided to come home I was like god life is so short no one cares no one's like keeping track of you or judging you or whatever you can literally do whatever you want and so I signed up for a lot of different classes I did life drawing and I did this Meisner class which was like an acting technique and that was really fun but I remember the teacher being like kind of what you're on to here which is he said you're so interested in deflecting and entertaining the room rather than you know really sitting in the moment and being able to do it and then sort of a month later I got pop wild and was on tv but acting definitely appealed to me then and it's increasingly something that I'm like oh I wonder how that would go it's interesting yeah I mean watching those things really made me want to see what else you can do and serious roles because you're you're very convincing watching I wanted to believe in everything that you were sharing so by the way guys this is the shittest show of all times it's so good um it's with it it you know what you were saying about being you know people believing in your authenticity it it it did work you know that was very um you wanted to believe and that's the power of your acting talent you know because great actors you just want to believe everything and it's so it's so enjoyable to to witness that but when I was much younger I ended up auditioning for because I was modeling and I got asked to audition for this film called My Summer of Love that Pavel Pawlikowski oh yes yeah and it was all improv and I was like in the last two and it was with Natalie Press and I had to do like a improvised scene with Paddy Considine about trying to seduce his vicar character or something and I was really into it and I didn't get it and the person that got it was Emily Blunt.

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30:08And because you're good at outlandish skits as well, like Pop World. That's why I liked Pop World. It was a bit more like SNL or something. I was like, I'll do it, but I want to play characters. Well, it reminded me of Monty Python and Connie Booth, who was so ravishing and seemingly oblivious of her charm. And did you look at those kind of skits for part of your inspiration at all? I didn't, but I wish I had, actually. It might have been really helpful. Oh, you got it. But I think in Britain, we were quite lucky, because growing up before the internet and before YouTube and whatever, But, you know, TV was rich with all of these great kind of comedies in the UK.

30:54And I used to watch Blackadder and Monty Python and all of the things that kind of like appointment viewing. So I think Brits had that as their baseline DNA. It's in there, isn't it? But it was fun the early days of TV because I was invited to the writer's room. So we would create a lot of those characters and bits. really that was really in pop world yeah I loved it I still haven't done a show that I love as much to be honest it seems very um right for re kind of configuring you know well they do do like nowadays all tvs a bit like that because my great theory is that a lot of the British tv producers ended up in LA and that's what made all those talk shows there so fun like Fallon and James cordon and carpool karaoke and hot ones is based on pop world not my pop world but simon amstall's really one but yeah i love hot ones it's great isn't it but that they created it based on a thing that we used to do called the big ones which is a one of the segments yeah yeah i see yeah because you've been on hot ones i went on that yeah i didn't know what it was and it was so fun to do I loved it but he's an incredible journalist as well because actually the research is so amazing and he is so casual in his delivery but what what he gets out of people is amazing yeah it's endlessly uh interesting it's it's really good I I don't know how you cope though with the level of you know explosion of chili I I can barely have like the tiniest things yeah you were really cool on your well I didn't really I just didn't I think I think there was the advantage of being quite naive to what was going on but now obviously if I went on now I'd understand so I'd probably be more scared but I didn't realize that we were going to take it up that far it's very clever because it it sort of deals with the mind and the body yeah So he's like coming at you from both places.

33:05It's perfect. It's really smart in that way. Because you talked about your early fashion being inspired by band girls and Anita Pallenberg and Patti Smith. And I wondered which women have inspired your writing. Well, Joan Didion I love, but she's a lot more serious. But I mean, the way she tracks a scene is incredible and immerses herself. And I guess those kind of postcards from L.A. are incredible. I think I'm a Nora Ephron girly or Fran Leibovitz. Yeah. What about Patti Smith's writing? I love Patti Smith, but yeah, I don't know. Yeah. It's almost like so good it's impossible to imagine how to write like her.

33:58Exactly. I think hers really comes from the heart and is much like her poetry and her music. It's kind of got a rhythm to it. My writing is, I have to delete so much because it's so wordy and it gets so like GCSE or A-level. You know, it's quite like, but I love a turn of phrase and I love wordplay. and I'm always trying to seed it with in jokes or signals or something you know like I love the idea that it's got code in it or easter eggs I suppose the thing the best bit of advice I ever got was get it down on the page and then of course you can shape it and uh that's amazing because I definitely don't you mean like just try and get the outline yeah or just write anything because that moment where you're hesitating thinking, oh, that sounds a bit bad, and then nothing, you don't write something.

35:00Like there's this technique they use in schools. When my son was at primary school, they had this thing called Fred Talk, which was writing as phonetically, so fruit, but it was to disinhibit them from getting it wrong, so fruit. i found a shopping list where it was f-r-o-o-t but that's so funny just incredible that's how i write to tom and texts quite often so that's really funny because i just think it's really funny yeah um that's a good tip because i i really do become obsessed with the turn of phrase or like whittling down something i just like when something's oh yeah i'll be drawn to an elegant phrase or something that just sounds so poetic and it becomes too flowery and it's like really annoying whereas some of my favorite writers and I'm obsessed with the New Yorker and I read and I loved your profile in the New Yorker as well and I read it all the time and I just am so impressed when someone is really concise yeah they had this article once and it was about the building or the um refurbing an organ I can't remember the best sentences in it now but i was like underlining them like wow i love this article yeah there was one about jane as well actually in the new yorker about you read that one it was about the problem it was jane birkin and her problem of beauty oh no and it was about how she was in it girl obviously the it girl but how she as a young woman had tried to commit suicide and was also really into poetry and was an artist in her own right but her um magnetism and the the quality that was indefinable about her also dangerously made her an it girl and from that made it seem they said something along the lines of I'm paraphrasing but like having this magical capacity to hint at being um able to do a lot of different things that were kind of mystical is also dangerously close to doing nothing or not being able to do anything and uh yeah it was so interesting because I was like thinking about how how she aged and and what she chose to do.

37:28And it is a trap, isn't it? It's almost like she was... Not that she... I'm not saying she felt like that, but everyone was so obsessed with her at a particular moment or something and her relationship to Serge. And it's like... I know, because in the end, the It Girl was determined by other people, and she was an actress and a very creative person. and yet everyone wanted to keep her as this kind of fantasy figure. Yeah. And she was so beautiful and so kind of captivating and endearing and talented. But just as beguiling older as well, I interviewed her. Did you? Yeah, I interviewed her at the V &A.

38:17She was amazing. And I remember we were sat backstage waiting and I just didn't know what to do with her because I loved her so much. I was like, oh, God, I don't even know what to say. Yeah. Because there's so much to say. Because she was quite matter of fact. Well, she was incredible because she wasn't very well at the time. And she was kind of, you know, she was quite like, I can imagine these are the wrong word because she was so generous and amazing. but she was also quite Bruce uncomfortable because she was unwell yeah but she said what what do you want me to talk about and I was like well it's about your book I'm here to interview but her friend had done this amazing book on her um she was like you I presume you want to know about Serge and I was like well yes obviously because he's incredible actually no it's not that it's I love this is this big thing about muses as well I think yeah like he is interesting for sure but he caught on fire when he met her you know it's like yeah she's the key to his magnetism in my mind at least obviously he's an incredible artist and his um his uh creative output like eclipsed everything and was definitely existing before she turned up but like the their relationship and that thing that everyone's obsessed with it comes from her as much as him yeah completely I know that I had this um well I made this jumper which you wore love which made I with the je tame Jane on the front but that came about because I'd made a jumper called with that said Ginsburg is God yeah and then I got a message from Jane Birkin's agent saying, Jane loves your Gansburg is God jumper.

40:11And I thought, what am I going to do? I can't just say everyone's God. So I kind of went into myself and thought, what is my feeling about Jane? And then I thought back, when I was at school, we had these wooden desks and we used to carve in like messages. I remember I'd carved in get up, stand up, you know, just discovered Bob Marley. And I thought, okay, this is Je t 'aime Jane. And then the Jane was done in a different type of script. And it was, you know, etched into my heart, into this desk. And then I put Serge on the arm. Yes. And Gansborg is God on the back. Really good. And then you, I sold a few of these jumpers and then you wore it.

41:02And one day someone rang my doorbell and said, I'm from Argentina. I need this jumper. I could have just. And then I got a message. I tried to send some to her and I got a message on my answer machine back in those days saying, oh, thank you so much for the Jane, but I can't possibly wear it. But maybe my daughters could wear it. But no, of course they couldn't wear Je t 'aime Jane. It was like this sort of poetic story of her complete and utter disinterest in herself. Yeah, she really didn't seem to know that she'd really taken Tumblr by storm. And I said, you know, I love you. And she went, yeah, no, I know.

41:53She's like, duh. There's me with my fringe and my life. I was like, I really like you. That's so good. That's brilliant. I love that. Life's been a little crazy lately. Okay, maybe a lot crazy. Staying sane and productive and having a good time doing it can be a tall order. So if you're looking for a natural way to chill out, here's a tip. CBD gummies from Cornbread Hemp. Their organic CBD gummies are made to help you feel better. Whether it's stress, poor sleep, or just needing a moment to unwind. Cornbread hemp uses only the best part of the hemp plant, the flower, for the purest and most potent CBD.

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43:43Really? Yeah. What? How weird. You hear this, this color. so we've done it before and we'll do it again so are there certain clothes that make you feel better when you're feeling low hmm no i i really believe in um i really we as a friendship group we joke it's called total image commitment you know i love the idea that this is why i love that nick nick cave wears his suits all the time you know i like you know i'd hate to bump into nick cave and he have on not that you know suit made by me suit made by you yeah so if i'm feeling low though there's not really an outfit that can i'm quite level with my vibe actually i'd say do you get low i think there's a minor chord that's going out going throughout me all the time that's what i mean about the melancholy or the nostalgia is always there yeah but it's not fluctuating with dips oh that's good um but I love Ugg boots to feel cozy but I kind of refuse to wear a bad outfit so even in the house I'm not like yeah my friend said to me I imagine when you get home you're not really wearing your comfy clothes you actually just wear jeans slightly larger it's the same jeans you just got them one size up who's this friend from wales from wales yeah that's a good good accent and you name checked mrs p in your l style award acceptance speech wasn't that great that was good fun it was so wonderful yeah and what is it about mutha prada she's like the great oracle of fashion yeah and um how has she directed you when you've walked for her oh well it's interesting you should say that because I walked for her last time I walked for her which was so I've only done it twice but I was like you know over the moon you don't understand how much I love Prada and Miu Miu it's really I love her I think she's so something about what she's up to is the same way I think on some level I don't know it's I love that it's in well I think she's also in on the joke you know I think she plays with I think she her clothes I think she understands the male gaze and refuses to interact with it or sometimes deliberately courts it but on her own terms and I find that really interesting and also that it's cinematic she takes cues from cinema obviously she's really involved in that scene but it's almost like she's creating characters and the clothes have a full backstory they're not just clothes she's really imagining the you know so many different women I'm imagining this I don't know this is true then there's also the proportion and how she plays with it um and that there's humor in it you know I just went to that Mew Mew show and it was aprons and it's this kind of bastion of domesticity that then it's reworked in like a kind of coquettish sexy thing not in a like obviously French maid and aprons that's a whole other trope but she it's almost like you almost she almost had a it was like a kitchen sink drama or something yeah yeah it's almost as if everyone was wearing marigolds you know it was totally sexless to the point that it became kinky again yes it like doubled back so everything's really I think provocative I find in her designs but when I walked for her I was so excited and I walked up the steps and you're all in a line waiting to go out and your heart's racing I mean it's so thrilling and scary um and she was by the monitor and I thought she was looking at the monitor of all the models and actually she was watching Formula One.

48:11Oh, my God, really. I just love her. She's so fucking cool. She's the coolest. That's extraordinary, isn't it? I mean, she was checking the monitor as well, but she was also, you know, she's just really cool. How did she want you to move then when you walked out or did she not give you that? It wasn't her directly that said. I think they just, I don't really remember what the direction was, but I certainly remember seeing images of it later and being like, oh no, because here's the thing. When you're young, you look a certain way. So I suppose I associated runway modeling with like being when I was younger and you could just walk out and it was fine.

48:56now I have all this experience and my resting face is actually so much more traumatized by life and I you know not that it's necessarily sad but my eyes in these images just look so woebegone and I was talking to someone recently about it and she said oh yeah that's the aha moment I said what do you mean she said when you're a young woman you're a young woman and then life comes at you and you experience all these things and then you have this moment of realization about how unfair everything is and you just go aha and suddenly you've got sight more because of your face hangs in like what the fuck way yeah and I have what the fuck eyes now I guess and so now if I'm invited to walk on a catwalk ever I think I would remember to think thoughts in my head and not go blank and expect that the face can do the talking because actually blank me just it was like terribly sad me do you think it's showing more

50:12yeah the mask is slipping it's interesting though that idea and I know exactly what you're talking about of composing bits of like composing your eyeballs so that they don't kind of pop out I'm speaking for myself I remember seeing a photograph of myself at something I was incredibly happy ecstatic something I'd organized and my eyes looked like they were just I thought I've got to control them Were they on stalks? They were just too glad. They were too much. They were taking over in a way that didn't really represent me. So I quite like the idea that you can sort of message bits of yourself. Yeah.

51:02You know. But I think you can because then I walked for Chloe. I love Shemayna. Yeah. And that was so cool to do. And in that one, I was like, God, what do I do? Like, I just don't know how to do it without looking either sad or angry.

51:21And so, yeah, my boyfriend was like, I think you should just try and look like you've just had really good sex or try and look like you're kind of, you don't necessarily need to be there. How do you mean? Rather than looking like, I've got to do this job really well. Right, right. You know, embody the character of the Chloe woman who's someone that's quite relaxed and it's a bit too cool to be there. Yeah, it's beautiful what she does. I really, I love the last show. I mean, I've liked everything she's done so far. Yeah, the last show is amazing. It was incredibly good. I love that sort of 50s, 80s thing.

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53:46And is there a random garment that a man wears that you find incredibly attractive? Attractive. I do love a suit, particularly a husband's suit. you know that brand husbands oh yes in france yeah they're so nice venude wears um husband oh really yeah he told me about it actually i bought a jacket there because i was like i want to wear it yeah really good tweed um so i love that yeah or it's a fine line isn't it because i think when when dudes are too trendy it's almost a bit vain or something I don't really necessarily love the idea of them shopping for things it sort of seems undignified or something I don't know because if if you fancy someone and don't like something they're wearing does it kill your attraction no because I've definitely gone out with people that I don't think have the best style but I just think I mean I really love a brain I've tried different versions of this with boyfriends but like you just have to be it I really need to connect mentally it's just about the brain so then as I've got older if that comes in a different look I don't really care um do I think all my friends will be like yes you do you switch out the jumpers you liar I'm quite good at updating a wardrobe as well I will say I'm quite good at doing a what's it called makeover a subtle and slow terrifying makeover but I suppose it's the trendy thing that's always the enemy because there's too much who's it someone told me trousers that are tight around the calf oh yeah no not that mine's um you know sorry if anyone's got them on i come in peace but um those little ankle socks that are hidden within a shoe do you know like a sport yes oh you and stefano pilati oh does he hate somebody else as well oh they're horrific yeah can't bear that i would say like yeah i'm not huge on track suit bottoms but i think that might be i i think i personally look bad in them so then I don't love I just like I quite like a suit a suit is really totally disarming isn't it it's amazing and what's the best compliment someone has ever paid you or you've ever received I always remember when I was 21 I think I went to lunch with my father and he took me to this very elegant man's house and there was an old ancient old queen there and he said oh you look like a mané and I thought you look like a what a mané oh mané and I thought I've never forgotten that that was oh the best so highlight moment of of my life and it's an interesting question do you know i don't really get that many compliments i don't think i mean you've been very generous to me today but people certainly don't tell me they like my outfit ever really yeah like literally never uh what i don't know the Yeah, I think if someone said I was funny or clever, I'd love that.

57:33What does your boyfriend say to you? Oh, he's very complimentary. His good compliment is even just, I trust you implicitly. As in, I said, should we do this or that just now? And he said, I don't know, follow your gut because your instinct's always right. And I trust your instincts. um i suppose a a good compliment is is being seen isn't it and so someone who's who sees that and then tells you and it's kind of thrilling yeah a hundred percent that's exactly right i've definitely yeah it's so amazing to be with someone who sees me yeah well i must have paid do you love because every time I see you I always I can remember your compliments because honestly they're quite rare that I get them and it's so strange I remember seeing you in New York and you said something like it was seeing seeing an animal in the wild or something and I was like I remember that moment I was in New York and I was with this friend Hugo Guinness and he went and I spotted you and thought god who's she she looks amazing and he said oh it's that fashion girl and then I remembered and then I accosted you and I practically I I think you had like a patent leather jacket or coat or you had legs you had the best legs I always remember and then I remember bumping into you outside the in and out club and you were wearing this incredible outfit and even the other day when we went to Mew Mew Tales yeah and you were wearing this amazing dress with a cutout but I I can't help I I always I always am thrilled by a great look and I I kind of never hold well I go around telling everyone that I love if someone's got something on that I love I'm like oh my god that's amazing where's it from I'm always like doing a stock take in my head I have to know where things are from and catalog them it's weird maybe because you're sort of famous for dressing well and having this great look people think oh I better not say anything she must be bored and uh well maybe because actually if I go to the countryside or somewhere then they are more complimentary like oh I like your boots I'm like oh thanks yeah no otherwise in London everyone's keeping schtum and you had lots of things named after you like the mulberry bag and and then there's the siri alexa which yeah it's named after it must be about i mean every time i ask alexa anything i always think i'm asking you oh that's nice sure it's not nearly as forthcoming as you are but kids love that one they find it hilarious but i i bet I bet there is a connection because your name you know it's quite timely wasn't it I don't think so I think it what didn't they say it was because everyone can say it or something yeah but I think that's really weird because all my life before that everyone called me Alexia or Alexis or it wasn't really a name people could get right but now they can so that's good I remember as a kid being like i wish people could just say my name correctly but it's a real careful what you wish for situation do you enjoy having things named after you how's that with your conflict about it's hard to unpick it all at this point because it's just been so long but um definitely the bag was a great compliment because i loved mulberry and it was great oh it was one of the first bags i bought was a um i saved up to get the bayswater with my modeling jobs i was like a fit model for french connection oh wow which was really interesting i loved it yeah it's so fun but um talent being a fit model actually fit models a really weird job yeah you have to stay really still and then they yeah they fit the clothes to but um i bought this bayswater bag at harrods and i loved it and then was a bayswater bag bayswater was like the classic one it was just one flap quite simple with handles they're really heavy though and i wanted it for my modeling book to put it in there because in the olden days guys you used to have to carry around a portfolio um and yeah it was great and then i started carrying their men's briefcase the elkington and then emma hill who worked there at the time was inspired by that and made the alexa but i didn't design it she designed it and then people thought i'd made it and it became this big thing and it wasn't really to do with me at all but um they certainly benefited from it so that was nice yeah well for me your alexa whenever i ask the phone anything but Do you have to say the name and then she answers?

1:02:47I think so. I hardly ever use it. I'm always worried if I ask to. Set it off. No, I just worry if I don't think, then I'll stop thinking. So I rarely ask for any. I did sleep with someone. I don't know if you want to cut this one out, but it's funny. I slept with someone once and they went, Alexa, turn off the lights. And I went to get up. no i know the that's really funny i was like fuck sorry oh my god god that's so hilarious yeah and you recently uh took photographs for 10 magazine germany and yeah they're very much your world but you don't bounce people away in the photos and you they allow people to look at your work without any commentary and they're really good I really like your photographs thank you is it relaxing to be in control of the looks you're creating from from this position I really loved doing that shoot um and I was photographing a couple of friends of mine um Ida and Odda and And they're both amazing artists.

1:04:07And it was just really fun. It felt like playing for a day. And they were really game and they're really good at knowing what they look good in. And Veronica was styling it. But I just love capturing beauty, basically. It's the same with my friends. If someone's looking a certain way or there's a certain light on them, I'm like, oh, wait, stay there, stay there. I'll always forget to bring my proper camera these days. But I just really like making people or capturing people at their most gorgeous. It's fun. Is that something that you plan to do more of? Maybe, yeah. I loved learning more about how much other stuff Diane Keaton was doing.