The creativity of author, designer, broadcaster Ben Arogundade
Celebrity Ancestry: Designer & Model Alexa Chung’s Heritage: Is She Asian? Where Are Her Mother & Father From? 50,000 Google Her Ethnicity, Nationality, Parents Race & Family Background
RACE STILL matters to many today, as fans of fashion designer, model and TV presenter Alexa Chung Google her ethnicity, nationality, Chinese heritage and her mother and father’s background. By Ben Arogundade. March.16.2021.
BEAUTY MIX: English fashion model, designer and TV presenter, Alexa Chung, evokes many online queries about her ethnicity, nationality and her mother and father's ancestry. She is of Chinese and European heritage.
IT’S THE SURNAME — CHUNG, that makes them curious. Those who don’t know the TV presenter and fashion designer and model’s ethnicity, nationality or her parents’ racial heritage, see an English beauty, with a not-so-English-sounding surname — and so they turn to the oracle that is Google for answers. Each month the search engine records the total number of Internet queries that people type into their browsers around the world. For example, 1,000 of Alexa’s fans Google the term, “Alexa Chung Asian ethnicity”, each month, while 2,000 search “Alexa Chung parents” and “Alexa Chung mother and father”. The total number of search queries about Chung’s ethnicity, nationality and family background amounts to over 50,000 Google searches every year.
ALEXA CHUNG ETHNICITY & PARENTS BACKGROUND
So, what are the facts about Alexa Chung’s background and heritage? She is one of four siblings born into a middle-class family in Hampshire, England on November 5, 1983. Her parents are Phillip and Gillian Chung (née Burgess). Her father is Chinese, a retired graphic designer, while her mother, a housewife, is English. “I’m mixed race — I’ve got half-Chinese hair, half-Caucasian hair — so it's very fine and naturally bends as it dries,” she told beauty blog Into The Gloss. She shares her ancestry with other fashion luminaries, such as the models Tyson Beckford and Naomi Campbell, who also have Chinese heritage.
ALEXA MODEL BIO
Chung — who is 5' 8" tall (1.73m), with green eyes and brown hair — was about to accept a place reading English at London’s King’s College when she was scouted by modelling agency, Storm, at the age of 16, while attending the Reading Music Festival. She has modelled for some of fashion’s biggest names, including Vivienne Westwood, DKNY, Tommy Hilfiger and Pepe, as well as being a regular fixture in the pages of Vogue.
In 2009 her stock rose when she became the muse of high-end handbag designer Mulberry, who created the “Alexa” — a much sought after, best-selling bag inspired by the British model. Despite her modelling credentials, Chung was once better known as a journalist and television presenter, who, for a decade, brought her own brand of smart, quirky exposition to a number of fashion and music shows for the British television networks, as well as a series for UK Vogue. Nowadays, after fronting a number of clothing collaborations with high street chains such as Marks & Spencer, she has now struck out to become a designer in her own right.
ABOUT ME
I am a London-based author, journalist and broadcaster. The history of non-white models features in my illustrated book, ‘Black Beauty’, released in 2000 (now sold out). Discover more about me and my work at Ben Arogundade bio.
