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A review by samihaazim
It by Alexa Chung
3.0
I love Alexa Chung.
The first time I came across her was in Heat magazine (my first and last Heat magazine may I add.) It was the glorious era of Alex + Alexa (aka Alex “lyrical-poet” Turner from the Arctic Monkeys) and I remember looking at her and thinking how effortlessly cool she looked. I wanted to cut my hair like hers and find clothes that Alexa would approve of and flick my eyeliner at the end. 10 years later, I still want the same things.
It is what I imagine is the result of Alexa’s mind bursting whimsicalness, pop culture and fashion onto paper. I’m not really sure what category it falls into; it’s not her memoir, it’s not a fashion guide and it’s definitely not fiction. Think of it as an amalgamation of Alexa’s thoughts on fashion muses, musical icons, lessons she learnt while growing up, love, heartbreak and other bits and pieces. It’s like a long and much nicer magazine to sit on your bedside table and give you some glitter when you need it.
She mentions her love for the Spice Girls and their allure of girl power, she expresses her love for Margot Tenenbaum (I LOVE MARGOT AND THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS…sorry for the capitalised letters, but I really wanted to emphasize my love), how she googled heartbreak (we’ve all done this, right?) and how we can all take the perfect selfie (essential knowledge people.)
I’m going to bring up my qualm now and it’s to do with the actual wordy part of the book, I was able to flick through this pretty quickly, which was a shame. There are apparently 161 pictures (which is a lot for a small book, but I didn’t count them) including Alexa’s own photographs, which were a lovely addition, but I would have liked a bit more written content. It could have done with a bit more fleshing out so it could have transcended the first level that it ended up getting stuck on. What I would have liked is a bit more of Alexa herself and not just her thoughts on pop culture. Apparently Alexa wrote this over a series of emails with her editor and it feels like that at times.
It, an amalgamation of Alexa’s fashion muses, inspiration, childhood memories and wit, is Alexa’s scrapbook and if you enjoy books that follow a “fashion blog” format, then get your mitts on this.
The first time I came across her was in Heat magazine (my first and last Heat magazine may I add.) It was the glorious era of Alex + Alexa (aka Alex “lyrical-poet” Turner from the Arctic Monkeys) and I remember looking at her and thinking how effortlessly cool she looked. I wanted to cut my hair like hers and find clothes that Alexa would approve of and flick my eyeliner at the end. 10 years later, I still want the same things.
It is what I imagine is the result of Alexa’s mind bursting whimsicalness, pop culture and fashion onto paper. I’m not really sure what category it falls into; it’s not her memoir, it’s not a fashion guide and it’s definitely not fiction. Think of it as an amalgamation of Alexa’s thoughts on fashion muses, musical icons, lessons she learnt while growing up, love, heartbreak and other bits and pieces. It’s like a long and much nicer magazine to sit on your bedside table and give you some glitter when you need it.
She mentions her love for the Spice Girls and their allure of girl power, she expresses her love for Margot Tenenbaum (I LOVE MARGOT AND THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS…sorry for the capitalised letters, but I really wanted to emphasize my love), how she googled heartbreak (we’ve all done this, right?) and how we can all take the perfect selfie (essential knowledge people.)
I’m going to bring up my qualm now and it’s to do with the actual wordy part of the book, I was able to flick through this pretty quickly, which was a shame. There are apparently 161 pictures (which is a lot for a small book, but I didn’t count them) including Alexa’s own photographs, which were a lovely addition, but I would have liked a bit more written content. It could have done with a bit more fleshing out so it could have transcended the first level that it ended up getting stuck on. What I would have liked is a bit more of Alexa herself and not just her thoughts on pop culture. Apparently Alexa wrote this over a series of emails with her editor and it feels like that at times.
It, an amalgamation of Alexa’s fashion muses, inspiration, childhood memories and wit, is Alexa’s scrapbook and if you enjoy books that follow a “fashion blog” format, then get your mitts on this.