Model HOME
A supermodel during the hedonistic heights of the ‘90s, CLAUDIA SCHIFFER looked to the curves and figures of mid-century modern design to inspire her family home in countryside England.
It’s one of those still, green midsummer days in the heart of England. The hedgerows are thick with hawthorn and bindweed, Queen Anne’s lace is nodding, hot red poppies bopping, and halfway along a pot-holed lane, fields give way to a dramatic modern house. This stone and glass building, on the borders of Oxfordshire and Northampton, has been the home of supermodel Claudia Schiffer and her husband, the film producer and director Matthew Vaughn, for around two years. Hugging three sides of a paved courtyard, floor-to-ceiling windows dominate. From the inside, they frame verdant farmland and the pale grey sky like a series of Rothko canvases. “It’s the calmness and being surrounded by nature and animals that I love,” says Schiffer, who grew up in the German countryside. “Even when it’s raining, just the clouds alone, their formations, are amazing to watch.”
The family also own an Elizabethan mansion in Suffolk, where they live during school holidays, but this modern lair — the kind of house in which James Bond might raise a family, if he ever gave up being James Bond and took a sudden interest in mid-century furnishings, contemporary art and creating a scene of loving domesticity for his kids and pets — is their term-time abode. It’s close enough to the three children’s schools (Caspar, Clementine and Cosima) that they don’t have to board, and big and slick enough to be the perfect base for the business empire of a 1990s icon and a high-voltage movie mogul.
Outside, even the playground — a giant trampoline and a swing set in matt black — is ridiculously chic. Inside, there’s a kind of market-square bustle. While the children are at school, the Vogue team directs photography and various staff members run errands between the house, converted barns and glass-fronted garage, where three fiery sports cars from Vaughn’s Kick-Ass films and the Kingsman spy comedy franchise sit. In the kitchen, microgreens grow in containers on the counter, while a black working cocker spaniel lies on the floor, legs in the air, waiting for tickles.
The woman who has reputedly posed for more magazine covers than anyone else in the world — breaking through in the 1980s as the head-turning, sexy Bardot-alike in the Guess denim adverts, before beginning a long-term career with Chanel and dominating advertising campaigns and editorial for many years — still looks a bazillion dollars. She’s dressed in pale blue skinny jeans, an Etre Cécile sweatshirt with a rainbow slogan and sandals embellished with colourful tassels. Her bombshell-blonde ponytail swings high. “Let’s sit in here,” she says, leading me into the living room, where a grand piano, two curved Tacchini Julep bouclé sofas and some impressive artworks dominate. I spy a pair of Hockneys, including a self-portrait, a Damien Hirst Kaleidoscope painting and a gigantic oil by Dexter Dalwood, immortalising OJ Simpson’s 1994 car chase down that empty LA highway.
Schiffer has been updating the house slowly for a year or so. “I’ve added more each month — unlike other people who maybe do it in one go,” she says with an apologetic shrug. “I know there are some ways of working — with an interior designer, especially — where everything is decided and laid out. But I like working exactly the opposite way. I like finding one chair and thinking, ‘OK, what goes with that?’ I love building things up, because then it is about who you are as a family.”
The building’s strict lines have led her to create a softer interior. “Our other home is completely different; lots of little rooms with fireplaces and cosiness. Here, you have a lot of glass and open space. The challenge is to make it feel like a family home. There’s that fine line that I’ve seen often — houses that look wonderful, but you’re worried to sit down anywhere. Where can you sit and relax?”
That is not a problem here, where guests probably need to be hauled away from the inviting sofas. “I’ve always loved mid-century style,” Schiffer says. “I love the wood and leather combined with sheepskin and Moroccan rugs and modern art; natural surfaces and tones with splashes of colour.”
Schiffer found most of her pieces online. “That’s been fun, because it arrives and you unpack and get the chance to try it in different ways and play around.” Her top four favourite websites for vintage gems are 1stdibs, Pamono, Vinteriors and The Modern Warehouse. Rugs from Guinevere Antiques on the King’s Road pervade the house. She’s still working on the finishing touches: “I’ve bought lots of frames from Habitat and I’m going to print out more pictures of the kids and the animals to hang on the walls,” she says.
Schiffer has triumphed in creating enticing nooks and sanctuaries in the mostly open-plan space. Everything has a story — such as the Tracey Emin I Promise To Love You neon work in the dining room (“It’s our motto,” she says); the ceramic and wooden tortoises that she’s collected from her travels; the commissioned artworks of the pets (the spaniel, a German shepherd, plus a Scottish Fold cat named Smartie who looks like an owl with flat ears).
All this is impressive in its own right, but it’s when things get subterranean that you see why this house is so uniquely right for the Schiffer-Vaughns. A staircase takes you down to a vast underground workspace, with tall white walls on which the couple scrawl the status of their combined current projects — including the films, for which Schiffer is usually an executive producer (most recently Rocketman), the luxury menswear line they’ve spun off from the ››
“I KNOW THERE ARE SOME WAYS OF WORKING — WITH AN INTERIOR DESIGNER, ESPECIALLY — WHERE EVERYTHING IS DECIDED AND LAID OUT. BUT I LIKE WORKING EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE WAY”
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“IT’S GREAT FOR THE COMBINATION OF WORK AND FAMILY. WE HAVE MOST OF OUR MEETINGS HERE NOW. IF I HAVE A PHOTO SHOOT, I DROP OFF THE KIDS AT SCHOOL, GO INTO LONDON AND COME BACK IN THE EVENING”