Kurt Cobain, British Weather Influence Alexa Chung’s Style

by Julia Rubin | 2:57 pm, November 28th, 2010

Just as the Sunday Styles finally discovered Kim Kardashian, they have now found Alexa Chung. We’ve been following one of Vogue‘s best dressed for quite some time, but the New York Times is just now getting on the Chung wagon.

Though MTV‘s “It’s On With Alexa Chung” got canceled after two seasons (something Alexa attributes to her unwillingness to bend to American audiences), she is currently filming a new show for PBS. “Thrift America” will air next summer, and feature Alexa and co-host Maya Singer “comb[ing] the country’s consignment shops, garage sales and flea markets for old clothing, furniture, music equipment and other potential treasures to use in various creative endeavors.” More simply, it’s “‘Antiques Roadshow’ meets the foodie romp ‘Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations.’”

While we we have to wait to watch her latest TV venture, the Times profile does provide some nice Alexa-on-Alexa quotes. Enjoy!

Her ombre hair was inspired by Kurt Cobain:

I said, ‘I want to look like Kurt Cobain.’ I said, ‘I’m going to America and they’re going to try and make my hair shiny and I don’t want it. I want to look like Kurt Cobain.’ All of my beauty icons are men.

The Times calls Alexa’s style tomboy-meets-Lolita, a look which is heavily influenced by her British roots:

The weather plays a big part over there. It’s always cold and unpredictable. And also I quite like the slightly dorky aspect of English dressing. A lot of my friends dress like this, and so I feel somewhat bad about how I’ve made a career out of it.

She may get her vintage duds from her mom, but she gets her eye for proportion from her graphic designer dad:

I just apply that to clothes. And I’m dressing for my body. So it’s very flattering that other people might want to borrow my style, but really it’s just making the most of what personally suits me, which is that I’ve got a long skinny leg and no boobs. So I dress to accommodate that.

Also, she thinks modeling totally sucks:

I can’t express how bored I was and how my self-esteem just diminished. I felt worthless because I was doing a job that had nothing to do with my own merit. It was to do with something that was given to me by my parents. The most beautiful girls in the world that I met while I was modeling were also the most depressed.

Okay Alexa, maybe we’ll forgive you for those pointed flats. Maybe.

[NYT]

Alexa Chung Sunday Styles The New York Times Thrift America