Alexa Chung Tells Us How to Survive Festival Season

Ahead of the release of Burberry’s Cool Britannia-inspired Festival Season campaign starring UK icons Liam Gallagher, Goldie, Cara Delevingne, and more, we called up eternal It Girl Alexa Chung to find out what she’s rocking this summer. Never mind the packable capes and mini kilts and tent-poling Daniel Lee’s latest collection. For Alexa, it’s all about bikinis.

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ALEXA CHUNG: Hi, how are you?

TAYLORE SCARABELLI: Good, it’s so nice to meet you. Last summer I went on a deep dive of Popworld and some of your other old TV shows, which was really fun.

CHUNG: That’s very dedicated. I feel like you might be the only American person that’s even heard of it.

SCARABELLI: I mean, I was trying to do a weird little internet show, so I was getting some inspo. But I really loved your musician interviews. And this a good lead in because we’re here to talk about your new Burberry campaign, inspired by a moment in pop culture known as Cool Britannia. So I want to start with a difficult question about some bands from that era. Fuck, marry kill: Oasis, Blur, Pulp?

CHUNG: We used to play this a lot on the school bus when I was really young. I was a big fan of Pulp when it was not very popular to like them. It was definitely Oasis at my school and Blur at home because my sister preferred them. It’s so tough. It’s hard to not think of them as Liam, Jarvis, Damon—do you know what I mean?

SCARABELLI: Well, we could do it that way. 

CHUNG: Oh my god, okay. I think I’m marrying Oasis and I’m fucking Blur and I’m going to have to kill Pulp, which seems like a wrong way route. I could also easily marry Pulp as well. It’s marry, marry, marry in my book.

SCARABELLI: Well, it’s a good answer because you’re starring opposite the Gallaghers in this campaign and you don’t want to throw them under the bus. So I wanted to ask, what’s your first memory of Burberry, either in your personal life or in pop culture?

CHUNG: In my mind it’s synonymous with Danniella Westbrook, who was a soap star we had in England. Burberry definitely enjoyed a peak moment in the 90s when I was coming of age. So in my mind it’s inexplicably linked to rave culture, which is what we were going for in the images that I shot with the photographer. I was imagining I was at a rave in some of the dancier ones, which was very enjoyable. But when I was younger I had a Burberry scarf, which I thought it was really posh, so I used to wear that. I had a Burberry trench as well, but it was a fake.

SCARABELLI: Wait so in the 90s were you less into the Cool Britannia bands and more into rave culture?

CHUNG: No, I missed that. I was too young for rave culture, but my first bag at secondary school was a black record bag and I didn’t really know what it was. My brother had one with a weed leaf on it and I didn’t know what that was either. When I got to secondary school, all the older kids were like, “Fucking cool bag, man.” And I was like, “Thank you.” But Cool Britannia—I think that was an exciting time to grow up. People were being really positive about the UK and it felt like the arts were being funded properly. I suppose it felt more like the 60s might have in terms of social mobility and an explosion of artistic output. Everything was popping off.

SCARABELLI: Do you remember your first music festival?

CHUNG: I went to Reading Festival when I was 17 or 16. It was how I was scouted to be a model. I was in the comedy tent and I’d eaten hash brownies and I was crying with laughter and someone came over and was like, “Ever thought about modeling?” And I just couldn’t stop laughing. And that was the beginning of it all. That’s where I first saw the Strokes. I was just like, “Wow.”

SCARABELLI: The edibles were hitting.

CHUNG: The edibles weren’t even hitting at that point. I just felt like Julian had a halo effect. Just their outfits, everything. You’ve got to understand that the sartorial landscape at that point was quite Marilyn Manson. It was a bit of a dry time. Then the Strokes turned up in clothes that blew everyone’s brains apart.

SCARABELLI: Do you remember what you were dressing like back then?

CHUNG: Yeah, I wanted to look like Beck weirdly, and so I bought this green, vibrant green shirt from a charity shop and I wore it with green matching beads and I thought I looked really cool. And actually I stand by that. I think that was quite sweet that at the time my sartorial heroes were dudes in bands.

SCARABELLI: So no festival dressing regrets?

CHUNG: I mean everything looks horrible through the prism of time and Pinterest, but not really. I dress emotionally and also as signpost to the culture that I enjoy. Even if it doesn’t land quite right, I have an understanding of what I was at least trying to get to, whether that was a Sam Haskins photo with the over-the-knee socks or some kind of Bardot look with a Beret on top, or something inspired by Anita Pallenberg. I can see the matrix of Tumblr images in those, so that’s quite nice to look back on.

SCARABELLI: Totally. Going off of that, what are thinking about this summer? What’s your look for—

CHUNG: Latex.

SCARABELLI: Oh!

CHUNG: I wore a latex dress in my forties and I want to wear a latex top for Glastonbury. Because I think it’s quite practical. Glastonbury can be very rainy.

SCARABELLI: True. [Laughs]

CHUNG: Glastonbury Festival dressing has become a thing, and it makes me feel uncomfortable again. 

SCARABELLI: You don’t want to revisit your past looks?

CHUNG: No, I do. I think it’s quite funny to get uber self-referential. I saw that quote from Charli XCX the other day where she was like, “It’s interesting to explore the tension of staying too long.” I think that these things that we’re naturally repulsed by are actually interesting. I look at a beret denim hot pant, leather jacket combo and feel a bit queasy because I can’t possibly put it on, but then I’m like, “Or could I?” 

SCARABELLI: Yeah, I love that tension of,”This thing repulses me, how do I make it happen?” It’s always a good way to challenge yourself. In terms of the Burberry of it all, what are you packing from their new collection for festival season?

CHUNG: Well, in the campaign I got to wear a bikini, which I think is an essential item because it’s weatherproof and also I think it’s nice to do a bikini under a shirt or even over a t-shirt. It’s a secretly great item to bring.

SCARABELLI: Absolutely. I recently came across a photo of you in an American flag bikini top, low rise jeans and pearls. I was like, “Oh, I want to recreate that look this summer.”

CHUNG: That’s so funny. At that time I really liked Karen O, so I think that’s what’s going on there. The 80s were repulsive at that point because it was very early 2000s.

SCARABELLI: That was the electroclash, “80s revival but different” situation.

CHUNG: And then that ends up melting into American apparel and da-da-da. But again, that’s how that happened. People were going on road trips across America getting trucker caps. It was an ironic exploration of Americana. It’s all tied up in Vice as well, isn’t it? 

SCARABELLI: Right. Do’s and don’ts. Do you have any advice for elder millennials trying to survive festival season?

CHUNG: You’ve got to hydrate. We’re not as young as we used to be. You’re not going to win any prizes for overextending. I mean, a lot of older millennials have children. Sometimes your booze tolerance takes a hit there, just because you’re not party fit, as we call it. You can’t expect to go out in the same way that maybe once you could, so just take it easy. If you need to nap, you take that nap. Also, what about a slightly shorter stay? It used to be Thursday night to Monday morning, but actually, is it better to come in strong and leave in glory. So maybe it’s a Friday night, leave Saturday night.

SCARABELLI: Smart. Okay, last question. While doing my Cool Britannia research I came across this 1997 Vanity Fair issue with the coverline “London Swings Again.” Is London swinging again in 2025? What bands are you into? 

CHUNG: I really like Fontaines D.C.  I think that it’s been a tricky time. I love London and so I always champion it and say that it’s brilliant and I won’t hear a bad word against it. And I often think that people get the wrong end of the stick because they come here and they stay in the wrong areas and they just don’t get it. It’s the equivalent of coming to New York and staying in Times Square and being like, I’ve seen New York City. And it’s like, no, that’s not really New York City. But we’re doing a lot of great wine bars. We’re doing a lot of good restaurants. There’s lots of good galleries. I think it could be on the up.

SCARABELLI: Well, next time I come I’m going to ask you for tips. Because I had a bit of that experience last time where I was like, “I don’t know where to go.” But I had a great time at the Burberry show.

CHUNG: You just need to stay in East London. That’s all you need to know. 

SCARABELLI: [Laughs] Well, thank you for chatting with me.

CHUNG: Thank you!