Alexandra Leclerc Brings Fashion History to the Spanish Grand Prix
Alexandra Leclerc turned the pit lane into a piece of fashion history at the Spanish Grand Prix, stepping out in one of Dior’s most talked‑about creations: the John Galliano–designed newspaper dress.
The look, immortalized by Sarah Jessica Parker’s Carrie Bradshaw in season 3 of Sex and the City and later revisited in Sex and the City 2, suddenly found a new stage on the asphalt of Madrid rather than a Manhattan sidewalk. On Friday, Sept. 11, the 26-year-old influencer — pregnant with her first child with Ferrari star Charles Leclerc — arrived at the circuit in the vintage Christian Dior mini, a direct nod to the Fall/Winter 2000 collection.
She leaned fully into the drama of the piece. The monochrome print, sharp lines and archival aura did the heavy lifting, while Alexandra kept the styling clean and modern: a coordinating purse, black open-toe heels, sleek sunglasses. Leo, her much-photographed dog, padded alongside her, completing a scene that looked more like a campaign shoot than a casual paddock appearance.
The dress itself carries a story as layered as its typography. Designed by then-creative director John Galliano, it debuted in 2000 as part of Dior’s so-called Hobo collection. At the time, CNN reported that the line drew from Galliano’s observations of displaced people he saw while jogging and from the “Tramp Ball” trend of the 1920s and 30s, when the wealthy dressed as the homeless for glamorous parties. The references sparked controversy, yet the newspaper print slipped into pop culture lore once Sex and the City put it on screen.
From there, the dress became shorthand for a certain kind of fashion audacity. In 2025, Jenna Ortega brought it back to the red carpet at the Hurry Up Tomorrow premiere, proving the design still had sharp edges a quarter of a century on. Alexandra’s choice drags that legacy trackside, folding F1 into the same pop-cultural frame.
This isn’t a one-off cameo, either. As the F1 season gathers speed, Alexandra has been treating race weekends like a rolling runway, building a distinct maternity style in front of the garages and motorhomes.
Fashion Choices
At free practice on Friday, Sept. 4, at Autodromo Nazionale Monza in northern Italy, she arrived in a black keyhole cutout dress scattered with white polka dots, the bow-tie halter neckline framing her shoulders. The look was finished with her now-signature small-framed black sunglasses and hair scraped back into a tight, polished bun. It was sharp, graphic, and unapologetically styled.
She dialed things down in color but not in intent the following day. An all-black, knee-length dress with a plunging halter neckline took over, matched with black kitten heels and another pair of tiny black sunglasses. The palette stayed minimal, the impact did not.
Fashion and motorsport have been circling each other for years, but Alexandra sits at a particularly modern intersection. Her taste has already drawn the eye of Hailey Bieber, whose beauty brand Rhode selected her as its first “muse-ambassador,” as reported by Vogue. That partnership evolved into a collaboration and gave Alexandra a platform to spell out her beauty ethos: makeup that looks and feels like skin, nothing overworked, everything intentional.
Now that same philosophy is playing out in the paddock. Vintage Dior one weekend, polka dots and plunging black the next. With the engines roaring and the title fight unfolding, Alexandra Leclerc is quietly running a different kind of race — one where the checkered flag is a camera flash, and the circuit belongs as much to couture as it does to speed.
