Chrissy Teigen's Summer Fashion Philosophy Is All About Keeping It Chic — and 'Age-Appropriate' (Exclusive)

Lately, Chrissy Teigen has been dressing with her current lifestyle in mind — and it's all about keeping things chic.

The mom of four spoke to PEOPLE about her partnership with Metro by T-Mobile for its new Nada Yada Island campaign and discussed some of her current fashion philosophies. While traveling around Europe this summer, Teigen, 38, says her style team has elevated her outfits to match her maturity.

"I'm at the age now where a lot of the sites that I shop on sometimes, I'm like, 'Oh, this is too young for me now,'" the model says.

Case in point: Her looks at the 2024 Cannes Lions Festival featured a white crocheted halter dress and a ruched minidress accessorized with pearl jewelry.

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"I think we set a tone for an area that we're going to. Obviously we wanted to be very chic for Cannes," Teigen adds of her fashion choices on the French Riviera. "We wanted to keep it really chic and age-appropriate but still fun for summer."

Though she's well known as a magazine-fronting model, Teigen says she's "very styled" and denies any credit for her cover-girl wardrobe. When she's home in Los Angeles with her family — husband John Legend and their kids Luna, 8, Miles, 6, Esti, 17 months, and Wren, 1 — the Cravings cookbook author strips her style down to the essentials — and always "all black, everything."

"I just wear my Lululemon leggings, my Hanro Bra and my Guest in Residence cardigan. That's every day of my life," Teigen tells PEOPLE. "I don't even have time to tie my shoes. I only get the slide-on APLs."

She keeps comfort and flexibility at the top of her priorities when dressing herself, like "things that can get dirty all the time," the self-proclaimed "homebody" explains. "If I'm wearing anything other than that, that means that somebody else did it."

But while her clothing strategy is simple, Teigen maintains a thoughtful beauty routine. She recently stirred up some conversation online with her way of removing her makeup in the bathtub. In early June, Legend posted an Instagram video of his wife scrubbing her body with an exfoliating cleanser from his skincare line, Loved01.

As Teigen rinsed off, the bath water turned the color of the makeup, which caused an uproar in Legend’s comment section. Teigen shared the video to her own profile to address followers' questions about the water hue and clarify what she was doing.

“Currently getting roasted online for being dirty because no one listened the the audio where I say I’m soaking off body makeup (to shower after!) 😂😭 , full blown fights in John’s comments," she wrote in the caption of her post. "My favorite is 'baths are not for bathing.' I love a good old fashioned roasting though, u guys are killing it (it being never touching grass ever)."

Commenting in response, Legend joked, “Baths are not for bathing is some amazing internet-ness.”