Alexa Chung's Barbour Collection Is The Perfect Antidote To Coachella Fashion

Alexa Chung’s collaboration with Barbour is so perfect that it begs the question: what took them so long to team up? The Voguecontributing editor was cautious about meddling with a classic, it turns out.

“I don’t like it when [fashion doesn’t] honour what something ‘is’… I think I have a fear of modernity sometimes,” she tells WWD. The chance to delve into the heritage brand’s archive and factory – “You have the greasiest hair by the end of the day, because if you touch the jackets after they’ve been freshly waxed, they’re really potent” – was too good to miss, however, and Chung has signed a two-year, four-season deal with the 125-year-old label.

Seven pieces of outerwear, three tote bags and a bucket hat will drop in early June – just in time for Glastonbury – and a second drop is scheduled for August 2, as the last wave of festivals takes place. It’s a canny marketing plan that taps into Chung as one of the poster girls for Brit girl Glasto style, which is, thankfully, lightyears away from the Coachella fashion currently infiltrating our Instagram feeds.

What’s the Chung tilt on the classic khaki countrywear? She has cropped all the sleeves, crisped up the collars, narrowed the A-lines into “B-lines” for a snugger silhouette and stitched a bold lighthouse logo combining both names into each piece. Highlights include a blue raincoat inspired by Liam Gallagher, and a quilted green coat with corduroy collars and cuffs that sings of royals in Balmoral.

Perhaps the expertise of running her own eponymous brand for two years has bolstered her confidence in the studio, but the collaboration feels like the most natural tie-up out of the string of companies Chung has aligned herself with (Superga, Marks & Spencer, AG Jeans, Vöslauer Mineralwasser) over the years. It represents “the ABCs of being ‘moi’,” she continues. “One, wear a Barbour; two, make sure the sleeves are short; and three, pretend to be French. My whole ambition, at all times, is to not look like clothes are fussy or are eating you, and to make something hang so that it flatters.”

Stocked on Barbour.com and Alexachung.com, as well as select retail partners (Net-a-porter, Selfridges, Liberty), the collection will be priced from £229 - £429.