Alexandra Leclerc Turns F1 Paddock into a Fashion Runway

The engines hadn’t even fired in anger, and the first headline of the Spanish Grand Prix weekend was already written on a dress.

On the sidelines in Madrid, Alexandra Leclerc – newly married to Ferrari star Charles Leclerc and pregnant with their first child – turned the paddock into a fashion time capsule, stepping out in Christian Dior’s iconic newspaper dress, the John Galliano design that first hit the runway in the Fall/Winter 2000 collection.

It’s a piece loaded with history. Loaded with controversy, too.

Once derided, then immortalized on screen, the dress became a pop-culture relic when Sarah Jessica Parker wore it as Carrie Bradshaw in season 3 of Sex and the City and again in Sex and the City 2. On Friday, it resurfaced in a very different universe: not on a New York sidewalk, but on the asphalt fringes of Formula 1.

Leclerc, 26, matched the vintage mini with a coordinating purse, black open-toe heels and narrow sunglasses, her ever-present dog Leo trotting alongside like a four-legged accessory. The look felt deliberate, almost defiant – a statement that the F1 paddock can be as much runway as racetrack.

The dress itself has never been neutral. As reported by CNN, Galliano originally sent it out as part of his “Hobo” collection, inspired by displaced people he saw while jogging and by the 1920s–30s “Tramp Ball” trend, when the wealthy dressed as the homeless for opulent parties. The line drew criticism for romanticizing hardship even as it produced one of Dior’s most enduring pop-cultural artifacts.

That uneasy legacy didn’t stop it from evolving into a red-carpet weapon. In 2025, Jenna Ortega revived the look at the Hurry Up Tomorrow premiere, dragging it from TV nostalgia into Gen Z territory. Alexandra Leclerc has now pulled it into yet another arena: the high-octane, sponsor-soaked world of Formula 1.

And this isn’t a one-off.

As the F1 season gathers speed, Alexandra has been quietly – and now not so quietly – assembling a paddock wardrobe that plays to the cameras without ever looking forced. At free practice on Friday, Sept. 4, at Italy’s Autodromo Nazionale Monza, she arrived in a black keyhole cutout dress dotted with white polka dots, the bow-tie halter top sharpening the silhouette. Small-framed black sunglasses and a slicked-back bun completed a look that felt tailored for both hospitality suites and grid walks.

Twenty-four hours later, she switched gears. An all-black, knee-length dress with a plunging halter neckline, black kitten heels, tiny black sunglasses again. Same color palette, different message: less playful, more sculpted, almost architectural. It’s maternity wear, but not in the traditional sense; it’s runway thinking adapted to the rhythm of a race weekend.

That instinct for virality has already pushed her beyond the paddock. Hailey Bieber’s beauty brand Rhode picked Alexandra as its first “muse-ambassador,” as noted by Vogue, then handed her the keys to a collaboration of her own. Her stated philosophy is simple – “makeup that looks and feels like skin” – but the execution is anything but casual. It dovetails with her fashion choices around F1: polished, photogenic, and built for close-up scrutiny.

So while Charles chases tenths on track, Alexandra is carving out a different kind of grid position – one where a 26-year-old Dior dress can share space with tire blankets and timing screens, and where a WAG can turn a pit lane into a front row.

If this is how she’s starting the season, the real question is what she’ll dare to pull out of the archive next.