12 of the most amazing things Alexa Chung has ever said with her mouth

It’s a bit braggy to say, but I’m over here [in New York] writing cover stories on couture, but literally no one knows that I do it!

I used to have a bob, and then one day I just realised like, 'OK, the jig is up—boys just like long hair.' I hate to generalise, but they do! So I thought, ‘Why don’t I just look nice for a second?’ and I grew it out.

I do like travelling, though, because I like to steal the tiny bottles of whatever’s up at the hotels. Aesop is the best score... I think of it as like a hotel heist, like I’m a beauty heist burglar. One time, at the Ritz Paris I took their entire bath set. I was like, ‘I’ll take a bathrobe, a bath mat, some of these pink towels—all of it.’

[I want to] learn more about dinosaurs because it blows my mind that there was actually a time when they were around.

I get 15 invitations a week to go to parties and premieres. Mostly, I don’t go to them, I meet friends at Bungalow 8 instead.

It wasn’t until I was 22 and allowed to do whatever I wanted, that I had my own hair identity.

The way I look isn’t about feeling sexy for me; I like to feel hilarious and quick-witted. A guy said to me the other day, ‘Oh, you look really pretty!’ and I was like, ‘Ugh.’ I can’t handle that. I’d rather hear, ‘Oh, you sound clever today!’

My skin is drier than the Sahara desert—it’s like sandpaper and the outside of a cactus had sex and made my skin.

I always write ‘Magic Potion’ on my perfume bottles so when I use them it feels magical—I make spells in the morning when I put them on.

I was like [to a photographer she wanted to work with], ‘You should tell someone your end that’s good, that can talk to someone on my end that understands and then we can do this thing, because at the moment we are just saying ‘Yeah motorbikes, desert, thing with a pool.’ Like that’s all cool but what’s it going to be?’

When they phoned to tell me my book was number three, my first question was, ‘Why isn’t it number one’?

The other day I bumped into Florence [Welch] and Daisy [Lowe] who were staying at the Bowery Hotel. It was Sunday and I had to file copy the next day so I had my laptop with me. We go up to their room and Florence starts singing and draping scarves over lamps, Daisy strips off to her matching underwear, and I’m wrapped up in jumpers smoking a cigarette with a laptop. None of us were hanging out, we were just being us. I’m trying to get more work in, over-achieving, Daisy is floating around being sexy and Florence is just singing away.