Alexa Chung skipped London Fashion Week – save for the glossy screening of In Vogue: The 90s – because when facing the quandary of whether to support her favourite designers or her nervous system, the latter won. Having just been to New York twice in the space of five days for her latest Madewell launch, the newly minted creative director of Barbour’s The Edit for autumn/winter 2024 had a celebratory dinner to plan at Brat (incidentally the scene of Charli xcx’s pre-LFW shenanigans ). Any weary fashion PR yawning at their desk this week will tell you that mapping out a seating plan is no mean feat.
Still, Chung, brilliantly witty as per, Googled “how to make people happy”, learnt that “you should put the person nearest to death near the loo”, and landed upon a ’70s-tinged playlist kicked off by the Alessi Brothers, family-style plates of anchovy bread, beef ribs and burnt cheesecake, and a warm atmosphere designed to feel decidedly anti-fashion and more like a gathering of friends. “What makes anything good is authenticity,” she shares, while perched on the edge of her bed surrounded by dress options for the evening ahead. “I genuinely love these people, these clothes, this food – it feels like a curated thing that is honest.
The ones that feel dodgy are because someone has got a cheque for trying to pretend they like something.” With a gaggle of wax-jacketed friends, including Isamaya Ffrench, Marco Capaldo, Christopher Kane, Pixie Geldof and Henr.