On Record: Alexa Chung was doing fit checks before fit checks were a thing.

Before Instagram, before TikTok, before “what I’m wearing today” and Amazon storefronts, there were only little glimpses.

The Cobrasnake documenting nights out that looked more fun than the ones you were at. Perez Hilton’s watermarked paparazzi shots. Tumblr teaching an entire generation to romanticise blurry flash photography. The Olsen twins disappearing into black SUVs. Somewhere in the mix: Chloë Sevigny, Paris Hilton, Nicole Richie and Poppy Delevingne.

That’s how style travelled. You’d see one photo of someone carrying a Gucci bag or rolling up the sleeves on a blazer. Then it would end up on Tumblr, someone would repost it, you’d save it to your desktop and somehow it would work its way into how you got dressed six months later.

Nobody really explained any of it.

Alexa Chung was one of those people. She wasn’t making videos about what she was wearing or linking every item before she’d even left the house. Half the time she was just walking to dinner or leaving a gig with a coffee in her hand.

As I write this, I completely understand why it’s different now. If your job relies on the internet, you quickly learn that context matters. Captions matter. Keywords matter. Explaining your outfit is often what helps someone find your video in the first place.

But writing this made me realise that getting dressed and documenting getting dressed have quietly become the same activity. They’re almost impossible to separate now.

We’ve got OctoBuddys (dare I link it here) stuck to our phones, tripods balanced on park benches, partners patiently filming us crossing the street three times because the first take wasn’t quite right. We don’t just wear the outfit. We create content around wearing the outfit.

I’ve done it too. If I’ve put together a look I’m genuinely proud of, I want a photo. It feels like a waste otherwise. I force my boyfriend to stand there holding my phone because the lighting is better that way (I’ve convinced him we’re a team). There’s something strangely human about wanting to remember the version of yourself that felt good that day or is it for likes???!

Which brings me back to Alexa Chung, who’s quietly reinvented the fit check. If you haven’t seen them yet, she’s using her Ring doorbell camera.

She’ll walk out the front door with a coffee, flowers, an umbrella, whatever she’s got on that day. Sometimes she’s already halfway down the path before you realise you’ve seen the outfit.

You end up picking up little clues about her day. Is she dressed for rain? Is she heading to dinner? Trainers or heels? I don’t see this as content, I see that you’ve just caught a glimpse of someone on their way somewhere.

It reminds me of spotting yourself on the surveillance monitor in a convenience store and immediately striking a pose. Now there are apps trying to recreate that exact aesthetic. It’s funny that we’ve gone from avoiding surveillance cameras to deliberately making our photos look like they came from one.

Maybe that’s why Alexa’s Ring camera works- it’s intentional and accidental.For someone who became a style icon through candid moments, it feels strangely full circle. Maybe style is just more interesting when it feels discovered, not performed.