You can appreciate my style without having to appreciate my weight': Alexa Chung hits back at her critics and admits she'd like to gain ten pounds

Alexa Chung has launched into an impassioned defense of her weight– angrily denying that she has an eating disorder.
The English TV presenter, 28, who seems skinner than ever after making a move to Manhattan, is a firm fixture on the front row, where her Bambi-like legs are often on display.
However, the lithe brunette, who was a host on Channel 4’s teenage strand T4, insisted: ‘I think it's about time people stopped judging women on their appearance and more on their intellect.

 

Slender: Alexa Chung shows off her long legs as she poses for Italian trainer brand Superga

‘Like, you can appreciate my style without having to appreciate my weight. It's not actually mutually inclusive. I just get frustrated because, just because I exist in this shape, doesn't mean that I'm like advocating it and being like, 'I look great.'’

 

The soon-to-be author, who is penning her own design book as well as working on a fashion label, told Fashionista.com it ‘sucked’ that she had been dubbed a ‘thinspiration - as she insisted she would like to gain 10 pounds.
Claiming there were some days where she felt ‘disgusting’, she said: ‘How do you know I’m not looking in the mirror and going ‘I wish I could gain ten pounds?’ Which is actually quite often the case.
‘But if you say that you sound like you’re bragging that you’re naturally thin, and you’re not allowed to do that because even though it’s not the ideal weight, it kind of is as well.’

 

Slim but stylish: Alexa steps out at a Chanel party last week in New York

Calling the situation ‘f****d up’, she also cited the hypocrisy that comes with larger women being able to say they are happy with their shape, but slimmer women unable to do so, adding: ‘If I was to do that, I'd be completely criticized and ridiculed. But why can't I be happy with how I look.’

 

She said: ‘I'm just a bit sick of it. I just think that whole culture of hatred, and also feeling like it's your right to judge people when you don't know them.’

 

The former model put her figure down to nature, insisting she doesn't starve herself.
And she also dismissed her style icon status - claiming she's simply been 'ripping off Jane Birkin' and Françoise Hardy.
Gesturing to her body, she insisted: ‘It’s not like I’m starving myself, I’m not.

 

The 'Frow': Alexa Chung and Laura Bailey at the Erdem show at London Fashion Week last month

‘This is just how this is. At this point in time and like maybe it will change when I get older but due to stress factors and all that, this is my natural body shape.
‘I don’t sit around and judge other people and flick through magazines and be like ‘f****n’ hell she’s gained ten.’
She also cited writer and director Lena Dunham as an inspiration.
Lena – the creator of TV hit Girls – has proudly showed off her fuller figure and last week even vowed: ‘I am going to live to be 100, and I am going to show my thighs every day till I die'.

 

I love my thighs: TV golden girl Lena Dunham shows off her figure in tiny shorts in LA last month

And Alexa said: ‘Like Lena Dunham’s really intelligent  (and people seem to be able to focus on that, rather than how she looks.)
Although Lena happily discusses her weight in public, Alexa claimed that she was not able to, sniffing: ‘She’s allowed to say it whereas I’ll sound like a whining b***h in that bit.’
Despite admitting to being ‘judgemental’ in the past, the star said the criticism she had faced over her figure had helped her to become a ‘better person’.
She stressed: ‘It’s difficult because sometimes people do have eating disorders, and whatever but you never know what’s going on in someone’s life so I’d say don’t be quick to think you know.’

 

Strike a pose: Alexa attends the Burberry Paris Boutique opening last December

Asked for any advice she would give women, she said: ‘I mean, there’s definitely days where I’m like, I look disgusting. But that’s being a human being.
‘I don’t think anyone on the planet can look at themselves in the mirror every day and be like fuck, I’m f***ing great.
‘Maybe like Halle Berry or Beyonce. Or someone generally banging. But I don’t know.
'Self esteem, that’s something you got to work on yourself. I know for me it’s different day to day. So like, just because you’re in magazines, doesn’t mean you think you’re excellent.’