Is This OK? by Harriet Gibsone

Author:Harriet Gibsone [Gibsone, Harriet]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Published: 2023-04-06T17:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

The Subtle Art of Alexa Chung

Alexa Chung once said on a fashion podcast: ‘If you study an image for long enough, you take on those attributes by osmosis.’ With that in mind, I’ve been staring at a photo of her in a preppy smock dress off and on for two hours today – on the bus, in the loo, then peering at it on Google in my pocket like a lucky stone. In the best possible way, she looks like a marzipan baby-doll triangle princess. When I try on my interpretation of the outfit later that day, all I see is a shapeless satin sack that grips to every lump and crevice on my body, like a tea-towel draped over a bowl of grapes.

At this point in my life I have scrutinized every single image of Alexa Chung uploaded onto the internet. I follow her progress like a music fan would their favourite band; each new photo a new song, a new season, the mood of the moment. She gives a little but never enough: I want to know if she drinks cow’s milk. What form of contraceptive she uses. How her endometriosis has affected her life and if she has a good relationship with her mother. If she considers the success of modern influencers shallow, and if she’s ever considered Botox.

If we were to meet, I would diminish to a shadow. I am the finger puppet on the pinky tip of her grand marble statue. It is hard to imagine her acting timidly – her voice lost to the loud chatter of a party as she asks a guest if their journey was OK, once, twice, three times, until they finally hear it, and answer back dispassionately. When she talks, everyone listens. Because as well as being both funny and clever – the sort of person who’s inexplicably good at poker, darts and bowling, and has literary quotes and references appropriate for every occasion – Alexa has been blessed with extraordinary beauty.

Her style is undefinable and delights in inconsistency. Clothes fit her so well, whereas they – dungarees – so often feel as if they are wearing me. Preppy, shabby, cool, she shapeshifts from poised street style to reluctant A-lister; dishevelled bed-head to silky Hollywood tresses; battered Converse to sexy Prada boots, PVC and Peter Pan collars. She’s at her zenith on the go and off-guard – with a coffee or cigarette, the wind in her hair as she strides through the city to a ballet class; lanky limbs, short shorts and high-quality faded t-shirts that look like they’re made of fine, very fine lambswool. She keeps things simple underneath: I once heard her say that she wears sensible white pants. This information entered my cerebral cortex, nudged out the file marked ‘How To Convert a Decimal’, and has stuck around ever since. So now I do too, because Alexa understands that less is more – as long as you’ve also done barre every day for two months and have a body as smooth as a balloon animal.

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