"She is my Style Icon."

Last fall, as I prepared to visit my friend in jolly England, I wondered what the fashionable british birds were wearing down the cobblestone lanes of London.  I asked my friend A and she sent me a link to a fashion blog, “Alexa Chung is my style icon.”  “Who the heck is Alexa Chung?”, I asked.   She balked at this response and pasted a collage of clip art into an e-mail so I could fully appreciate her style icon. Miss Chung is England’s hottest It Girl/TV presenter (this is what they call tv show hosts or VJ’s), dates the lead singer of the Arctic Monkeys (everyone needs a rockstar boyfriend) and has recently transplanted to New York City to host her own MTV show “It’s On”.  From her outfit selections, I think she is the Brit answer to Kiki Dunst (pre-rehab). I would classify her style as quirky understated cool.

Alexa Chung, Brit style import

As a fun surprise, A arranged for a Style Advisor at Topshop to pull a rolling rack of clothes and shoes based on my lifestyle needs (“I’m very social. I like to dress up.”).  When asked whose style I could identify with most, I said “I love Rachel Bilson”  who is petite, wears a blend of vintage and young designers (Philip Lim or Zac Posen).  She’s trendy but not over the top and wears a variety of bright colours.  Key pieces were vintage dresses, chiffon prints and statement shoes.  I adored hot, hot, pink platforms with 6 gi-normous bows and I did marinate on them for a prolonged period of time.  But alas, they were not meant to be mine – the platform was higher than five inches (no exaggeration) and I deemed them too “crazytown” for North American tastes (basically they would get lost in translation).

Well played R-Bils. Printed mini dress with camel gladiator sandals

In a last ditch effort to save the Shoe portion of my style spree, we made our way to the very busy shoe section.  A gasps, “Ohhhmigawwwd!”  Who was standing there, all legs, amid the hooker boots?  It’s her style icon – Alexa Chung!  As a favour, I asked her if she wanted me to bump into her ‘by accident’ and strike up a random conversation on shoes.  She replied no because she would have died of embarrassment or turned beet red.  

And since I believe the universe is all about reciprocity, when A arrives in Toronto this October for a visit, I believe we will likely bump elbows with R-Bils in the shoe section of Holt Renfrew.  Full circle.