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Do strawberry blondes have more fun? This is the eternal beauty question Alexa Chung will undoubtedly meditate on—and hopefully offer an answer to in her trademark ‘It’ girl writing style —as the fashion icon just debuted a lighter reddish hair colour.
Perhaps taking cues from Julia Roberts’ trademark auburn shade, which was actually just traded in by the actress for a buttery blonde hue, Chung is the latest inductee to the red hair club.
If you recall, shades of copper were all the rage in early 2022, with everyone from Kendall Jenner to Euphoria starlets Barbie Ferreira and Sydney Sweeney sporting an orange tint. Chung reviving the pigment two years later does feel especially relevant to her mode of operating. (See: functioning with an elusive je ne sais quoi and penchant for vintage silhouettes.)
Given the hyper-accelerated trend cycle, Chung also tried her hand at dubbing a new esoteric micro aesthetic in honour of the beauty transformation. Sharing an image of herself with freshly-stained locks from the Serpentine Summer Party, Chung thanked her colourist for making her hair “ ginger chocolate, or whatever it is we should say to describe it”
“It is [sic] the same colour as the Gin Gins sweets I’m addicted to?” Chung questioned, before contributing the names “electric brown” or “gingey brun” to the canon of niche epithets. It’s not just the colour that has made Chung’s merigold tresses such a surprising alteration, but the timing of it.
On June 23, Chung was seen at Paris’ Place Vendôme for a fashion event sporting her signature brunette lob. But come June 25 in London’s Kensington Gardens, Chung was already a bona fide, albeit artificial, ginger. If we were to use a little colour theory, we’d argue that the hair change was an intentional act to enhance the emerald in the Nensi Dojaka dress she wore for the occasion.
The Albanian-born, London-based award-winning designer customised a look from her Fall/Winter 2023 collection to emulate Keira Knightly’s green dress from the 2007 epic war drama Atonement. Arguably one of the most iconic on-screen costumes of all time, Chung sartorially referencing Cecilia Tallis leaves nothing to seek penance for in our eyes. Well, maybe just for failing to bring back her perpetually enviable fringe when last in the hair salon.
