Alexa Chung: The Ever-Evolving It Girl | PLUS All Things London Fashion Week

0:05This is The Run Through. I'm Chloe Mell and I am joined today by British Vogue's Laura Ingham. Laura, can you introduce yourself please? Hi, I'm Laura Ingham, the Deputy Director of the Global Fashion Network based here in London. And what does that mean? That's a lot of words. It's such a very long, unnecessary title, isn't it? I know. I basically head up all the fashion here at Vogue in London. I work really closely with Choma and also with Anna and Virginia in New York, overseeing all the fashion shoots across all of the Vogue's that we work with. So it's a really exciting, big role. We are so thrilled to have you.

0:49I can't wait to hear everything about London Fashion Week. And we also have Madame Chominati in conversation with Alexa Chung a little later on. But before we hear Choma and Alexa, tell me about what runway shows that you saw in London last week, or was it this week? We just wrapped up. I know we just wrapped up. They finished on Monday. Fashion month just feels so long to me that everything feels like it must have been ages ago. I know. It really only just happened. But we've been lucky. First of all, thankfully, for the first time in it feels like forever, it didn't rain at Fashion Week. So let's just be grateful for that.

1:28So that was really great. It really kicked off on Thursday night. So the night before the start of the kind of official schedule, Charlie XCX played over at Olympic Park, which was really incredible, like true Rat Girl vibes. Even though it was H &M, it didn't feel too corporate or? No, not at all. Our entire team virtually, I think, were there. They had buses picking everyone up to get them to Olympic Park. I think that the true love for Charlie is real. And then we all had to kind of get up early on Friday morning and start the show schedule. And I guess the biggest moment on Friday, which I think was the biggest moment of London Fashion Week, was the SS Daily show, which was at the Royal Academy in the pouring sunshine, which was really fantastic.

2:24It was his women's wear debut and we were so excited. We'd seen a little bit of it. We worked really closely with Harry Lambert, who styles the show. Stephen's really known for his take on eccentric English dressing. so we're really excited to see what he did for his women's wear debut and he didn't disappoint it was really elevated he really pushed a new silhouette there was these incredible sort of embroidered wrapped beaded dresses um his classic suiting but cut to a women's wear shape and he also had these incredible um sort of dog print sweaters and dresses dog continues i know dog The joke continues.

3:10And of course, I had the ultimate seat, mate. I don't know if you saw. Oh, I saw. And I had a note to bring this up. But wait, first, before we get to that big reveal, I feel like in the US, we don't know that much about S.S. Daly. So it's Stephen Stoke Daly. He's a menswear designer. He sort of hopped up on the schedule a couple of seasons ago, but with an incredible cast. So he had this incredibly theatrical presentation and worked on his casting with Harry Lambert, who really gets behind and is such a huge supporter of young talent. And he saw something in Stephen and his brand, SS Daily, and really got behind it and has been working with him from the outset, I would say.

3:55I think it was last season now that Harry Styles would be investing in his collections and in the brand and supporting him. There is an amazing photo of you recording the show with your phone and your neighboring seatmate, Harry Styles, looking at you with such ardor. I mean, he truly is looking over like, oh, who is this blonde filming the show? It was extremely charming. We were all very there for this meet cute. It's so funny because I've honestly heard from more people in my life who haven't been in touch with me for so long. Like, you know, like old friends I haven't heard from for years and years have all been in touch with me about my seatmate at the S.S.

4:41Daily show. But yeah, we haven't. Harry Lambert actually whisked us backstage before the show to meet Harry Styles, which was already really incredible. Well, we were very excited to see that. Laura, what were the other big moments of, well, I guess it's not really even a week, London Fashion Week, right? It's like this flying four days. Yeah, four days, super intense. I think the other highlight, which was Chopova Loena, who are a duo designer who actually just recently won the British Vogue Fashion Fund Prize because they're just such an inspiring, creative team. They showed at the ditch in Shoreditch Town Hall, which was kind of felt like this really kind of like the underbelly of East London.

5:26And we walked down these kind of very crumbly stairs into the ditch with kind of peeled wallpaper and concrete torn off the floors onto these benches. We were sat very tightly together and then in quite tight rows. And they plunged the show space into darkness and they started playing this really loud, intense kind of like rave house music. It was amazing. Then they turned the lights on as bright as they possibly could. And then their kind of cast, this incredible cast of sort of friends, family, editors, editors' dads, I'm sure. Stef Jatka's father, Walt. Exactly. Walt had a star turn. Stomping down the runway, walking as fast as they possibly could.

6:11They had a collab with Asics and you could see all these kind of like charms flying off their shoes as they're walking past us. And they also had their new bag and this quite hilarious collaboration with Hellman's Mayo, which they had artfully placed into their bag. Oh, that was brilliant. I know. It was so great, wasn't it? I mean, every condiment brand should have a collaboration with a fashion house. But yes, I loved all the cameos. And also Alex Kessler, who actually interviewed Chapova Luena for the run-through. So really, it was all coming back together. Just for people who didn't hear Laura's more erudite pronunciation of Asics, she means Asics, the sneaker brand that they collaborated with.

6:59There was also on the Friday, it's always a day of Fashion East. Lulu Kennedy has been running Fashion East, which is a, I would call it an incubator for British designers. she mentors them supports them through a number of seasons provides them with a show space to really develop their brand and so many people have come through her the incredible work that she does there and this season there was a brand that I hadn't come across before called Lutra who were really impressive it's always nice when you see something that is unexpected and really exciting. The clothes were kind of ground in London, like sort of timeless craftsmanship.

7:42There was like kind of these big oversized coats, which worked really well. It felt really raw and sort of in touch with the sort of street style here in London. So I think that's one to watch. Okay. So tell me about what street style trends you were seeing. Like what are people wearing? It blessedly wasn't raining. I did get a rather cryptic email from Anna that came in at like 3 a.m. one day that said, hooded people everywhere. And I was like, is this Halloween? What's happening here? But she clarified that instead of baseball caps or hats, people were just wearing their hoods. But any other trends you noticed?

8:18Yeah, there were a lot of hoods. There was a lot of shirting. There's always so much denim in London. It sounds like a real cliche to talk about that, but it feels like that really is something that happened to you. We've been talking about that a lot here, too. A lot of denim purses also. Yes. Yeah, there were. That sort of outerwear, sportswear meets utility wear. There was quite a lot of palace that we saw. Martine Rose, I saw a lot of people wearing. Were there other major moments in London? I'm thinking of Burberry felt like a scene in the front row. I know that Anna was seated next to...

8:53Draper. Jack Draper. She was very excited about that. Skepta was there, as was Damon Olburn, Rio Ferdinand, ex-Ford. football player. It was really buzzy, like really bassy. There was like so much bass in that space. We were in the National Theatre. It was like that brutalist architecture. It felt like that big show moment in London, which is always great, but great to not be actually in a tent because quite often we're in a tent in a park, which feels very Burberry, but it also felt great to be grounded in the city. As we continue, what are you hearing, seeing from Milan that you're excited about?

9:29I'm waiting to see what happens next in Milan. The Prada show is always sort of my personal highlight to see what Mucha does next, what the transformation of that, you know, the foundation will be, what the set will be, who will open the show. It's kind of like first look at Prada. Is that going to set the tone for the rest of the season? Oh, suspense. I know. It's like my favourite kind of moment of the season to see which direction she takes it. Aside from my love of Prada for, you know, forever, I'm excited to see what Max Amelian does at Ferragamo. I feel like he's really evolving his creative director position there.

10:12And the collections are just getting stronger and stronger and we're shooting them more and more. Bottega, of course, like Mathieu is simply unstoppable. He's untouchable from the sense that he just presents ideas that nobody else has. He has a fresh take on the season. He champions craft like no one else I've seen, really honestly. And his connections are just so jam-packed full of ideas and narrative that they really are defining at the moment. Other news for us over here is, for better or for worse, football season has started again, which means that Taylor Swift is cheering. She is squad wife number one.

10:55She's wag. She's wag number one in the U.S. She's ultimate wag. She's ultimate wag. She wore like an oversized jersey to the game on Sunday. But so I think we're in for a long season of Taylor Fitz. And it was also interesting to see how her endorsement of Kamala Harris has impacted the way fans are looking at her, looking at Harris. You know, it's hard, obviously, to register exactly what that impact had. But Emma Spector is working on a piece on that for this week because there's been a lot of talk of how many thousands of voters were registered the day after she declared her endorsement. And we had our story on Karen Elson's wedding go up this week, which people were really excited about.

11:44She married the co-owner of Electric Lady Studios, recording studios, and they had a really charming wedding during Fashion Week in New York with a lot of big attendees like Taylor Swift and Lana Del Rey and a ton of the fashion crowd. But most notably for us, Karen wore Alessandro Michele's first wedding dress for Valentino. And we had the fitting pictures of that. And it was really dear to see how long they have been friends and to see Karen's daughter came and her dad. And it was a nice family moment at the Valentino showroom for that fitting. And also just to see whether Alessandro's, you know, aesthetic would be changing a bit for this kind of hotly anticipated Valentino show next Sunday in Paris.

12:31Yeah, it's like a sneak peek. Yeah, a sneak peek into it. And just you could just feel how happy Karen is in those pictures. It was so heartwarming to see those when they dropped. I'm also excited, Laura, that on Monday morning, they are announcing who Jean-Paul Gaultier's next couture collaborator will be. The most recent one was, who was it? It was Nicola de Felice, who designs for Correge. Us two, I literally can't wait. There's been so many incredible designers that have gone through those ateliers. Who's next? I mean, the Simone Rocha collection was one of my favorites. Mine too. I think we shot that incredible red tall dress on Zendaya for the American Vote cover.

13:14It came with three people in, I don't know, this huge van. And we had to carry on to set with her in it. It was unbelievable. And when she was in it, we had to spray it with a special static spray to stop. Oh, my gosh. To ensure that it continued to look as beautiful as it did on the runway. The most extraordinary look. And it was, yeah, one of my favorite collabs. That is amazing.

13:43The run-through will be back in just a moment.

13:58Right now, in movies, in the opera, even in pop music, divinely inspired women are everywhere. This week on Critics at Large, we make our case. Saints are having a moment. Look, I can spout off any number of cliches, but they're all true. The world is moving faster and faster. or materialism is now reaching every single corner of the globe, it's very hard to say no and to say stop and to say I will do without. And I think that explains some of the modern cultural appeal. I'm Vincent Cunningham. Join me and my co-hosts on Critics at Large from The New Yorker. Find us every Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts.

14:47And we're back. Earlier this week, Alexa Chung joined Choma for an interview in our London studio. Alexa is the quintessential multi-hyphenate. She has called herself a geriatric it girl, which I love, but she is also so much more. The former model slash TV presenter slash writer slash clothing designer chatted with Choma about what it's like to make her New York City debut walking the Tory Burch runway show. and also walked us through her new collection with Madewell. She and Choma have known each other for a few years, and the two of them together is so charming and delightful. If I had to make a guess, this episode might win most giggles per minute.

15:28Here is Alexa and Choma.

15:34Thank you again for coming. Honestly, so good to see you. And congratulations on walking Tory Burch. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Good fun, that was. What was it like? It was really fun. I will say I was extraordinarily jet lagged because the week before I'd been in New York and it was my dad's 80th birthday, which I flew back for. And so I took a flight. How did you guys celebrate? I made him an amazing cake. I know that he really loves visual things. My dad was a graphic designer. He's a very creative, very visual person. And then my granddad had... Wait, your granddad? He's dead. Oh, okay. I was going to say, still alive?

16:13He's there, 130. No, he, when he was alive, had a Chinese restaurant in the East End, in East Ham. Oh, how cool. Called Chan's. And their logo is amazing. So I made t-shirts out of the logo. Oh, how fun. Threw this party and then took a plane the next morning at 8am, landed in New York at 11am New York time and went straight to Tory Burch. and by the time I walked down the runway, I think I was in some really psychedelic realm where I'd been up for about two days. So it was really, really fun, but I just didn't anticipate that it would be actually also quite scary. Right. So the moment before...

16:56It is scary, isn't it? I mean, not that I've ever done it, but it's just like so many people with eyes on you, and you've kind of got to have this blue steel thing going on. Totally, and I didn't know how to play it, because when they asked me to do it, I was so flattered. I was like, oh, yeah, I'd love to do that. And I love Tori at the moment. I, like, love all the clothes they're making. So I was very keen to do it. And then I thought, oh, that's funny. It's a cameo, like, blah, blah, blah. And then when I turned up, obviously, it's a real production line because it's, you know, a proper event.

17:26And they had, like, Guido doing the hair and Brian Malloy was styling it. And, you know, they don't – no one wanted to be like, oh, wow, cool that you're doing this. Everyone was just like, sit down. This is the hair. This is the makeup. This is where you walk. so I was in a line of all these sort of 20 year old models I'm twice their age just trying to fit in so I felt a bit like you know in the lineup mind you she looks like a baby no not not a wrinkle on her face let me just say I'm up close here so I felt like I was trying to like get away with something almost and then when they when they send you out there's sort of like the time it's there's 30 seconds between you and that's when I got really nervous because the girl in front of me went out and it was Vittoria that beautiful woman the most beautiful woman in the whole world and then I had to go out next and it was like I got very nervous but it was really fun I loved it and then I was I had a lot of wind in my sails and was like yeah it did take me back to modeling as a teenager wow what were your first experiences of modeling like as a teenager because you were quite young I was very young I was 15 when I started and I used to do a lot of just 17 magazine Oh my God, my fave.

18:34Sugar. And I was like a teen cover girl, which was really lol. And I loved it. It was very, those type of jobs were really fun because they wanted energy and jumping on trampolines, doing a lot of kind of pajama parties. So fun. Quite funky hair and makeup things. Yeah. Very late 90s, early 2000s. I loved it, but it was a lot of responsibility. and I think I took it really seriously. But I mean, you know, I still have timing stress based on always trying to make castings at the exact right time. It was literally time is money. So unless you were first in line, you might not get the job. So how early would you have to show up to be what's like a good window?

19:19It was more like, honestly, this is before mobile phones. So you'd get your day printed out. And I was like a jobbing working model. I wasn't like a name. I was kind of catalogue and whatever else. You get your day, they print it out. None of it makes sense. Your first casting might be in Camden and the second one's in Ealing and then the third one's in Camden again. And you're like, wait. So you're literally pounding the pavement. Big time. So you made two stops in New York. Yeah, I did. First stop was Tory Burch, but most important stop was for your new collab with Madewell. Not your first collab with them, no?

19:53No. Because I think I met you in, I don't think you'll remember, I met you in Madewell. I think when your first time around doing it. Oh, my God. Yeah. And I wrote the story for Vogue. Oh, yeah. So, yeah, I did a collection with Madewell 14 years ago. God, it was 14 years ago. Yeah. I can't do maths, but I know this to be true. I moved there in 2009. Right. Because I had a talk show on MTV. Yes. And at the same time, I got invited to work on a collaboration with Madewell. And then all these years later, I wound down my business and sort of wanted to take a pause, kind of sort of really meditate on what had happened, basically, and take it all in.

20:36And then I kept dreaming about making denim again because I did sort of lose the desire to make things. I think once you've been burnt by a system or a situation, it was like I'd stopped dreaming. I actually stopped dreaming, I think, because I was so stressed. I mean, having your own business is, I mean, unfathomably stressful. It is. In fashion, specifically. It is. And also, I think something that happens is almost the worse it gets. Or if the health of your business is failing, the harder it is to talk about it. And so you end up in a situation where you feel quite isolated. But as soon as I became more candid about that, I suddenly found that everyone's sort of up shit creek.

21:16Oh, my God, yeah. It's hard. It's a really hard business to be in. Everyone's having a hard time. So I wish I'd have been more open with other people in the same situation so that we could have had a bit more shared knowledge. But I was so sort of, and it wasn't always bad either. So, you know, sometimes it was fantastic. But actually winding down that company taught me so much. And it became, ironically, the company I intended to start within the final weeks in the sense that it was a very small team. We were totally in control of what was happening. we really focused on the things that sold well for us we ordered more of that like we we really learned our lessons and were able to wind it down gracefully without owing anyone any money which was key but having landed the plane I was like oh my I actually can't believe I've just done that so I took some time off didn't have any dreams um and people would be like would you want to do it again I was like absolutely not then slowly but surely I'd be like oh I really want to make denim I really want to make denim and it became sort of a mantra and then I would expand it to be like I really want to make denim in America and I kept saying that to my boyfriend then I was like I wish I could just do Madewell again and then one day the phone rang no get the hell out isn't that weird you didn't you didn't reach out no I just kept thinking about you manifested it I did You're so American of you.

22:39I know, I manifested it. But that's major. That's so great. I like that I reject popular things so much that as soon as people liked manifestation, I was like, I'm not into it anymore. I bet you did. I'm like, I'm done. But yeah, no, I did call it in on some level, I think, just from like really remembering them. So it was delightful to get to work together again. And I was quite specific about what I wanted to do. and luckily it sort of aligned with what they were into as well. So cool. And how was it approaching it from, you know, at your kind of… Advanced age. Yeah, well, not advanced age. Age.

23:17Maturity. I know. I really like getting older, so I'm not… But this one, I just… What was so freeing about the end of my company and then moving into collaboration land was it couldn't get any worse than shutting down something I loved that much. And so then I felt really confident about just making things that would make me happy. And if other people wanted them, that would be a bonus. But it was almost like a healing. It was something I had to do and it needed to be on my terms. So it was nice. That said, you'll look at the collection and be like, it's very straightforward. But that's absolutely on purpose.

23:58And I think if we'd have been able to do some knitwear or some more quirky things, that would be great. But, you know, it was rigid and a small edit for a reason. We kind of wanted to keep it tight. How did you approach it? I want to have, I want to make sure I have this, you know. I wanted to not be afraid of doing things that were quite straightforward. Right. Because practically speaking, in my wardrobe, those are the things that are missing. And I'm a bit of a magpie, so I'll buy like an embellished cardigan or like a funky shoe. But actually, the basis of any wardrobe for me is just a straightforward pair of jeans that fit you really well.

24:39But it kind of evolved from looking at 70s imagery films, Midnight Cowboy, Kramer vs. Kramer. Wow. But specifically Dustin Hoffman's wardrobe in that. He looks amazing. Good denim, right? Doesn't he have good denim? He's got amazing denim. He's got amazing army jackets, brilliant trainers. Such a good film. It's really good. Well, you in the New York Times are saying that it's almost aggressively untrendy, which resonated with me because I feel like I get so annoyed with these micro trends or TikTok telling me whether I should wear socks or not socks and what it says about my age and this and the other.

25:19Why did you want to push back a bit at that? Because I think this collection does that. It's like, let's kind of chill the fuck out. Let's calm down. Everyone take a pause. No, it was instinctive and I didn't necessarily intellectualize that desire that much at the time. I just knew that I wanted a palate cleanse on some level. And it was just what I desired in my wardrobe. I think the trends escalating and the cyclical nature of things like whizzing up to the point where... The other thing is why, I guess because content breeds content or something, But I don't know why we're in an age when we all feel the desire to categorize everything immediately anyway.

26:02Like, for me, getting dressed is so much more emotional or instinctive or about mood and not about getting it right or wrong. It's just like this makes me feel more like me. I mean, what do you think you've learned? Because obviously, you know, in your 40s, people ask me this all the time about what's appropriate, what's not. Like, I think it's such, you know, pardon my French, I think it's bullshit. You know, you have to dress for your feeling. It's such an emotional thing. And that's why some of these, this constant insistence on trends really bums me out. Like, I really don't like it. There was a Jane Birkin quote that I read and have used in an article before.

26:42But she said the older she got, the baggier her clothes got. Or she was more attracted by menswear. Because it started looking more handsome and correct. So I do think that's a kind of foolproof thing of borrowing from the boys a bit. And it goes one way or the other. Whereas as I've got older, I've found definitely sexier things are more appealing to me. Yeah. Yeah. I love that though. Wearing something more form-fitting or making sure that the collar's more open. Yeah. Just a bit more sensual, a bit more aware of like. That's so cool. What's kind of almost a bit flirty. Do you feel like that just is because you're more, you know who you are now and you're more?

27:24I thought about it and I genuinely, I think that I'm really lucky because my style was born out of putting on armor after modeling, not wanting anyone to look at me necessarily, wanting people to pay attention to what I was saying on TV, using my brain, like wanting to be respected for having a mind. And so I think my clothes were a natural progression of that. But then the older I get, the less kind of armor I want to put on and the more I don't really, I want to live without thinking of being observed or something. Hi, I'm Rebecca Ford, Senior Awards Correspondent at Vanity Fair and co-host of Little Gold Men.