Purple, Flower, People in nature, Lavender, Dress, Spring, Boats and boating--Equipment and supplies, Boat, Watercraft, Reflection, pinterest

Alexa Chung wears Erdem dress and Solange Azagury-Partridge earrings, photographed by David Slijper and styled by Leith Clark for Harper's Bazaar

Alexa Chung grew up in the Hampshire countryside, then turned her quintessentially British sense of style into an international career. Having forsaken the itinerant life of a musician's girlfriend, she talks to Sasha Slater about embracing her different roles as a successful fashion designer and bestselling author in her own right, in the July issue of Harper's Bazaar - out now.

Alexa wears Burberry Prorsum dress and Nicholas Kirkwood heels on the newsstand cover.

'What does Alexa Chung actually do?' is the question I am bombarded with when I tell friends I am interviewing her. for Bazaar. This seems unfair, as she is in fact extremely diligent. I witness this on our cover shoot which, contrary to appearances, takes place on a cold day in a biting wind that drives me back indoors after a couple of hours. Not Alexa, though, who poses barelegged in the wispiest of summery dresses on, variously, a rowing boat, a Pashley bicycle and a frisky grey mare, surrounded all the while by a madly excited pack of beagles. While the florists arrange hydrangeas in the boat, she lounges goodnaturedly on the grass, chatting to the photographer, her upper half wrapped in a Burberry blanket, those endless legs, with their Coachella tan, shivering in the weak sunshine of an Oxfordshire spring. 

Alexa Chung is a professional model; she started her career aged 17 and, indeed, she is so comfortable in front of the camera that, as she tells me: 'It's weird when there's not one there. Which is a worry.' But she is many other things too. She's a fashion designer, who has just launched her second collection for the California label AG Jeans after the first sold out in record time. She's a television presenter, once named 'the saviour of MTV'. She's a spokesmodel for such desirable labels as Longchamp, the French leather-goods company; she developed a hugely popular eyeliner with the make-up brand Eyeko. And she wrote a bestselling memoir, It. I struggle to think of many 31-year-olds who have achieved even a tenth of this.

But perhaps other people are confused because Chung is slightly puzzled herself. She describes her career as 'a shit-show-free-for-all: I have too many agents and no central person, so I'm the central person and I'm already inclined to be quite scatty, so my life has very little order to it. But I love it'.

One of the two secrets of Chung's career is her effortless style. Every time she is photographed (and there is a lens trained on her at all times), she is wearing some utterly beguiling, eccentrically English variation on a combination of high-necked governessy top, hotpants and men's clumpy shoes. Combined with her clear-skinned, feline beauty, it's a look that is all her own, albeit one that has spawned infinite, occasionally successful, imitations. 'I think my style is a balance between masculinity and femininity,' she offers, clearly struggling to articulate what comes so naturally to her. 'It's a sexy way to dress because it's confident. A bad outfit can really get me down. If I'm wearing something really normal and boring, it's like torture.'

Alexa wears Christopher Kane dress and Nicholas Kirkwood heels.

Her other secret is her popularity with a notoriously fickle but lucrative group – young, fashion-conscious women. Like Cara Delevingne, she has always been an early adopter of new technology, and thus is one of the opinion formers and influencers who play out their lives online. 'I was one of the first people to get on Myspace [the social-media platform launched in 2003],' Chung says, as we sit together while the twilight darkens in a chilly but beautiful boudoir of Shotover House, the 18th-century manor where we have been shooting. And her flighty insouciance is perfectly suited to Instagram (1.7 million followers) and Twitter (1.5 million followers): 'I love trying to fit a stupid pun into 140 characters just as much as I love picking the right filter and caption for Instagram. Those followings are unmistakably important. They have an effect on whether brands choose to work with you or not. But it seems a bit silly that it's become something to be respected. I mean, it's just fun isn't it?' Yet the reason her followers trust Chung, buy her pussy-bow blouses, adorn their eyes with her trademark black flick, and watch her programmes, is that, as she says in her deep, throaty, home-counties smoker's voice, 'I could never do anything that wasn't genuine. I turn down a lot of things. Tech companies approach you to hold something in a picture and then say "This is your Twitter." There are people who get away with that and look really cool doing it; but I'm just not one of them.' 

Indeed, there are times when brands' efforts to court her backfire, such as when Maker's Mark bourbon thanked her for her vocal enthusiasm for the liquor. 'Do you know what they did?' she laughs. 'They sent me a bottle with my face etched onto it and I was like 'time to stop!' I've been drinking more red wine now.' So no Twitter namechecks for Maker's Mark. 

As for the darker side of the internet, inhabited by trolls, 'I ignore it,' she says calmly. 'Sometimes I respond, but I try not to. I don't think I need to get involved in that. I know it happens to everyone, and I don't pay any attention because it's not relevant to my life.' She pauses a second and then confesses, as if she can't resist, 'occasionally I write things back if I think it's funny. Like once I tweeted: "I'm signing my book this afternoon. I'm excited to meet you all. No tongues." And someone wrote back "Will you suck me off?" and I replied "...well, if you bought the book..."' 

Alexa wears Stella McCartney coat, Holly Fulton mesh body, Alexa Chung for AG Jeans skirt and Tabitha Simmons flats.

A good deal of Chung's allure resides in her dry, self-deprecating wit. Before the shoot starts, she tells a funny story about spending a night out with, among others, Leonardo DiCaprio, in New York and him mistaking her for a waitress because 'he can't really see brunettes'. He spent the evening ordering vodka and cranberry juices from her which she, being one of the good guys, duly went, queued and paid for. 

These days, Chung spends half her time in New York and half in London, a result, she says, of her contrariness: 'I don't like being told what to do,' she explains. 'And I don't want to be penned in. I don't want to feel I have to be anywhere. Sort of like, "Oops, you thought I'd be here, but I'll sort of... vanish." I am quite restless. It makes me a nightmare to date, I think.'

This restiveness is 'a product of having grown up in the middle of nowhere', she tells me. 'I grew up in Privett in Hampshire in a field, and I spent so long there just imagining and imagining and imagining what I would do if I lived not in a field, that as soon as I got out I ran straight to London.' The daughter of a part-Chinese graphic designer and a housewife, she was a bright student at school, and had a place on an art-foundation course in Chelsea and another to read English at King's College, London: 'I couldn't decide which to do,' she explains. So, hating to be pinned down, she ditched both and spent two years modelling while studying the Meisner technique of acting, 'but my acting teacher said I was too defiant and interested in entertaining the class... which is perfect for TV'. 

Alexa wears Alexa Chung for AG Jeans silk shirt, Alexander Lewis skirt and Toga heels.

Success on Popworld, a music TV show known for its cheeky interviews, led to a whole slew of popular programmes for Channel 4. At the time she was dating Alex Turner, the frontman of Arctic Monkeys, and photographed everywhere in her exquisite gamine wardrobe. What more could she want? 'I'm not materialistic,' she says. 'It's not about making money. But I'm excited to explore different things.' So, instead of staying in London, she set off for New York and a stint on MTV. Turner moved as well, and they lived together as a dream celebrity couple. She was supported during this time by a group of close friends that she calls 'Team Evil'. 'It was this international crew of young women; basically groupies,' she recalls. They kept their volatile partners in thrall by being tough on them. 

Chung doesn't really discuss her relationships (her current one is rumoured to be with the Swedish actor Alex Skarsgard) but she does offer hints as to why she and Turner broke up. During the presentation of her new 'quintessentially English' line of clothes for AG Jeans to fashion journalists the day before our shoot, she shows a sweatshirt with the words 'Sacred Monster' on it and tells the audience: 'This is from a book I was reading, about lead singers being sacred monsters. They're put on a pedestal because they're so revered for being amazing and they're sacred beings and that attention turns them into monsters. I've given them up now, so it's fine, but I really love that phrase.' She broke up with Turner in 2011. The girls of Team Evil, she says, 'are all old now. We're not dating rock stars any more. Half of them have had babies'. 

Alexa wears Alexa Chung for AG Jeans silk shirt and Victoria by Victoria Beckham trousers.

Chung, though, is still youthful and colt-like – so much so that she has been criticised for acting as 'thinspiration' for anorexic girls on the hunt for images of super-slim celebrities to emulate. 'I have to be very careful how I talk about this,' she says slowly. 'Because it will go all over the internet, whatever I say.' For the first time since we started talking, she's picking her words... 'I'm the beanpoliest of the Chungs,' she offers. 'But I'm also the tallest. At school my nicknames were Anna Rexa, Skeletor and Olive Oyl and I thought, "Oh, I can't wait to grow up and have people not take the piss out of me for having skinny legs." But,' she says, gaining vigour again as she sips tea (she begged for a biscuit but the crew ate them all during the day-long shoot), 'I understand my impact as someone that young girls might look up to and try to emulate. I feel bad that they could think that this [Alexa's slimness] is a good idea. Daisy Lowe is my ideal of beauty. I would love to look like Daisy. But I'm confident and I'm not ashamed of my body in any way. And I don't want to take responsibility for other people. So, while it saddens me that I might be used as thinspiration, and that's very depressing, I also want to preach that you should be confident in yourself. And I think I look fine.'

Chung's skin glows with health but she does discern some visible physical signs of growing up: 'I've got a couple of grey hairs and I've been doing more ballet. Well, it's sit-ups with ballet shoes on, but I love the shoes.' As for Botox, fillers and any of the seductive anti-ageing treatments on offer to women in her position? 'No! I can't! I would never. I saw Patti Smith the other night and she definitely hasn't had any Botox and she looks cool. I'm not anti, because there are people who have had it done who look really good. But if I can't even be bothered to brush my hair, I don't think I should start getting face work and worrying about that. I think it would look a bit try-hard. Being excitable and passionate is what makes you look good because if you're engaged in what's going on, you radiate youth.' 

Alexa wears Alexander McQueen coat and Tabitha Simmons heels.

Perhaps these are part of her attraction – that passion and self-belief – but she says she's more laid-back now she's over 30. 'I used to worry... I used to be terrified of the idea that I wouldn't have something to do the next day. I have to have something to occupy my time. And then I'd worry about how many different things I juggle and how I was going to fit everything in. Worrying. Worrying about whether this person was OK. And now I'm like, "If it doesn't work out, that's OK." I'm less generally anxious. And I've learned that there are a bunch of themes in life that happen to everyone. So if a friend is going through something, or I am, I think usually it's fine in the end. Except when it isn't.' 

Dusk has fallen and Chung's car has arrived to take her back to London to sprinkle her very British version of stardust at a party. The day may be over but London's most industrious It Girl is still hard at work. 

Go behind the scenes on Alexa's cover shoot in the video below:

youtubeView full post on Youtube

This feature originally ran in the July issue of Harper's Bazaar. Click here to subscribe

Alexa wears Simone Rocha top and skirt on the subscribers' edition cover

***

MORE ALEXA CHUNG

Shop Alexa Chung's denim collection

My Cultural Life: Alexa Chung

VIDEO: How to recreate Alexa Chung's beauty look