That Alexa Chung is a walking sack of chic. Her boyish, Sixties-leaning personal style has inspired a rash of imitators, admirers and obsessives, and in dressing for music festivals she uses the same basic approach. Combining laidback classics with the kind of aspirational (read: not affordable) luxe twist you’d expect from a person labeled ‘it’ girl (Chanel bag, Celine flat), she even turns up on myriad best dressed lists wearing a pair of gumboots – an improbable task achieved only by Kate Moss before her. With the festival season approaching, we look at Alexa Chung’s formula for #flawless festival style* to get some inspiration.
*Having legs for days and an immaculate doe-eyed face is a good place to start.
CUTOFFS VS COVERAGE
When you do have legs for days as Ms Chung happens to, the rule of thumb with high-waist cutoff denim is: if you can’t see the pocket lining dangling near your crotch, they’re not short enough. If genetics has gifted you limbs worthy of comparison to members of the deer family, you are obligated to adhere to this rule whether you like it or not. Of course the trick – exemplified by Alexa in the blurry Instagram photo below right – is balancing the butt-revealing vulgarity of the cutoffs with extra coverage on the upper half. Alexa goes with two of her favourite wardrobe repeat offenders: white blouse and leopard print coat.
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MASCULIN FEMININ
Much like her oft-referenced personal style touchstones, Sixties actresses Jane Birkin and Françoise Hardy, Alexa Chung likes to match boyish tailoring and masculine cuts (shirting, trousers, overalls) with subtle femininity through fabric, prints and hemlines. One of her staple looks is the Peter Pan collar on a mini dress or blouse. This accessory was named after the performance of Broadway actress Maude Adams in her famous role playing the boy who wouldn’t grow up, and was later adopted by Mods in the ’60s worn with minis and monochrome. Alexa donned a Lacoste dress with a lace Peter Pan collar for a DJing gig at Coachella this year with terrain-appropriate sandals, dirty hair and acetate Celine shades – a touch of rock and roll to avoid going too twee.
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ACCESSORISE YOUR SMIZE
In addition to her quilted Chanel bags and boyish brogues, one of Alexa Chung’s go-to accessories is the best cure for baldness: the hat. Hats are terrific accessories to wear at festivals for practical as well as trend-related reasons. Hats are a fortress against your bad hair going public. When I think festivals I think tents, and when tents are concerned you need to lower your personal grooming capabilities by at least 36 points. Have you ever blow dried your hair from a campsite? If so, you are a dedicated slave to beauty and I take my hat off to you. Hats also provide a barrier against the sun’s harmful rays and on rainy days will act like a personal canopy of chic protection.
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BRETON STRIPES
As mentioned before, Alexa credits “ripping off Jane Birkin” and Birkin’s French New Wave cohort as the key to her coveted styling methodology. The Breton stripe t-shirt simply doesn’t date, and remains a must-have wardrobe staple lifted directly from that era. Chung’s festival fashion has featured the Breton stripe tee time and time and time again.
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COMFORT > COUTURE
When it comes to festival dressing, comfort should trump style every time. In a slouchy jumper, worn-in shorts, sneakers and an old plaid shirt you can be comfortable enough to do a three-way human pile up if the moment calls for it. Plaid really is a festival-friendly fabric option. If you bungle your drunken attempts to inhale a Thai chicken Humble Pie Company pie, and the insides waterfall out of the pie’s crust slopping down your front, all it takes is a bit of indecorous smearing and the pie debris is magically absorbed into the flannel leaving no trace bar the faint aroma of green curry spices. Delicious! Alexa Chung evidently holds comfort in high esteem and, despite being one of the most influential wearer of clothes on earth and playing muse to Mulberry, Karl Lagerfeld and LOVER, she happily trades in couture for Converse when it comes to festival dressing.
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Main photo by Getty Images
