Alexa Chung: From Fashion Insider to Reality-TV Star

SCENE 2: SHOWTIME!

"Hello!" says Alexa, emerging from backstage before an audience of about 100 20-somethings assembled for the taping of this episode. The crowd, perhaps unsure what to make of this beautiful creature with preternaturally long, skinny legs, remains silent. "Why is everyone so moody today?" Alexa teases, breaking the ice. "I know it's fashion, but you can be happy." Laughter erupts.

Alexa is in week two of filming for 24 HC. She reports to work at 5:00 a.m. and often doesn't leave before 11:00 p.m. She spends more time here than she does at her own home, which she moved into days before filming started and has yet to furnish. ("I sleep on a mattress on the floor," she says. "There's nothing more grounding than that.")

24 HC is filmed over the course of 24 hours (hence the name of the show). Four designers competing for a $10,000 grand prize are narrowed down to two, who then have a day to complete three looks. There's a runway show, judges' deliberations, and the selection of a winner. Every episode brings a new crop of designer hopefuls. "With a lot of other fashion shows, it's not actually relevant," Alexa says. "I only wanted to do this if it was going to be a genuine search for designers and if I would be working alongside people who are legitimate in the fashion industry." She says she's set her expectations low because "I got so burnt by the last [show]." But she adds: "Everything feels right this time. I really like the team. From day one, we've laughed nonstop."

It helps that she's already gotten her feet wet in American television. "I feel like I've done my hellos. If it works, it works. If it doesn't, I can still draw or write or do whatever," she says. "Last time [with MTV], I gave up my London home and friends and jobs there, so it was more disappointing when it didn't work. But I feel more rooted here now. I'm like, OK, I've done this before. I can speak American now."

SCENE 3: WARDROBE

One place Alexa is definitely on solid footing is in the wardrobe department. "I've been trying to wear quite big outfits," she says of her fashion direction for the show. "I don't want to look naff [Britspeak for 'common']. I think it should be a true reflection of what's going on in fashion." She's been borrowing runway numbers from the likes of Chanel, Burberry, and Proenza Schouler (not your typical reality-show fashion fare). As in real life, Alexa is acting as her own stylist. "Basically, I was given a budget, and I spent it all on one Balenciaga leather jacket," she says, laughing. "So I've got ten episodes to do and nothing to wear." When I point out the irony of her comment, she quips, "My closet at home is barren."

SCENE 4: ALEXA'S CLOSET

In fact, by Alexa's own admission, her apartment is so overstuffed with clothes, "it looks like Hoarders. Back in London, I had what I called a 'terror room.' It was floor-to- floor with shipped bos from the U.S.A., still unpacked one year on, with clothes spilling out of them—basically, a mattress of clothes up to here," she says, holding her hand waist high. "People ask how I get dressed in the morning. I literally pick through the swamp. I'm worried if it's neatly arranged, I won't be able to get dressed."

Her closet staples include the following: Burberry trench ("it's classic and practical, and Françoise Hardy wore one in a picture where she's holding a camera and has white glasses on"); striped Breton tops ("they're a last-resort situation if I'm tired and don't know what to wear—stripes always look crisp"); little white dresses (she pairs them with boots to toughen them up); and anything schoolgirl ("I love schoolgirl style; it's relad but smart, boyish but girly—all my favorite juxtapositions in one"). She says she gravitates toward classics because they're easy to adapt, especially when she's traveling.

Alexa describes her style as "understated. I don't like things to be too overthought or too sexy or too vampy," she says. Her style icons tend to be men: Keith Richards, Mick Jagger, the Beatles. "I like the silhouette of a cigarette pant with a Chelsea boot and a buttoned-up shirt," she offers. "But there's also a side of me that loves superfeminine dressing—looking like a cake or a Christmas tree," she says, laughing. Marie-Antoinette is also a style icon.

Do the paparazzi who wait outside her building on a regular basis cross her mind when she gets dressed in the morning? "It depends. Sometimes there are bigger life things going on," she says. "The annoying thing is that whenever I do spot a pap, I'm like, Ugh! Today wasn't a good day. Why didn't you get me yesterday?"

She's come to accept and even appreciate the It girl label because, she says, "when I look at It girls of other decades—Jane Birkin, Penelope Tree, Jean Shrimpton—those are all the people whose style I admire. If it's meant in that way, I think it's cool."

She adores Elle Fanning's style but is less impressed with the sisters Middleton. "I massively bought into the fairy-tale wedding," she says. "But the fact that the press were giving Kate all this fanfare before she looked amazing is a bit weird, because it's obvious she got a stylist. Regardless," she adds, "no one cares about the mechanics behind why someone looks good."

SCENE 5: BAGGAGE

The fact that Mulberry created and named a bag in Alexa's honor—and that it is one of the British heritage brand's most popular styles—is still somewhat surreal to Alexa. "To think, my mom was going to call me Anna, and someone at the hospital was like, 'No, Alexa is a cooler name.' My mom had already had three children by then, so she was like, 'Whatever!'"

Somewhat surprisingly, Alexa the person has only one Alexa the bag. "A brown one," she says. "Maybe I ought to ask for another." She feels "weird" carrying it, though. "I'll start using it again one day," she says. "It just seems a bit much now, like, 'Hey, guys, guess what I'm carrying?'" Of seeing other people with it, she adds, "All it does is make girls feel awkward when I walk in and they've got it on them."

What Alexa lacks in Alexas, though, she more than makes up for in Chanel bags. Asked how many she owns, she demurs: "A lot. When I bought my apartment, they were like, 'Is there anything you want to insure? Any jewelry?' I was like, 'Nope, nothing. All I've got are these Chanel bags.'" The Chanel bags are insured. "Something for my daughters to inherit one day," she says.

SCENE 6: ONE-WOMAN SHOW

We're sitting at a window table in Café Mogador, a casual but buzzing Moroccan restaurant in Manhattan's East Village near Alexa's apartment. Alexa is wearing an Alexa Chung for Madewell palm tree–print shirt and seventies-style cords with too-small Miu Miu boots ("I got excited and wore them out of the shop before I realized they weren't the right size," she says). Slung on the back of her chair is the first Chanel bag she ever purchased ("I saw it at Heathrow Airport, and there was a tax-free sign, so I was like, That's sort of a discount"). We're talking about boys—or rather the lack of boys.

Alexa and her boyfriend of four years, Arctic Monkeys front man Alex Turner, recently ended their relationship, so she's newly single in a new city. "Where are they? Seriously, where the f*** are they? There seems to be a boy drought in New York City this summer," she says. She does, however, let slip that her cue when she sees a cute one is "BGA": bloody gorgeous alert (another one for the Alexicon).

An NYU student comes up to our table and asks Alexa if she can take an iPhone picture with her. "Sure!" Alexa says. When the girl leaves, Alexa sighs. "It's never boys who come up to me. It's always cool-looking girls. It's very handy for my straight male friends. They love that I attract this bevy of beautiful young women." She laughs.

It's hard to believe Alexa has any trouble attracting members of the opposite sex, but for the moment, at least, she has plenty to keep her occupied. "It's good to be on your own in an exciting city," she says. "This is when you do stuff for yourself. Right now is a real turning point. Everything I thought I knew is no longer. I think this is the year I have to grow up. I don't know," she says. "Maybe I'll become a power woman."