INSIDE HELENA’S WORLD

A glimpse into the life (and gorgeous home) of Helena Christensen

You don’t have to travel very far out of New York City before the landscape grows big. Trees, which had been dwarfed by skyscrapers, reclaim their stature, rising grandly in forests of verdant green, hugging the Upstate highway and piercing the vast blue sky above. Here, white clapboard homes with wraparound porches are dotted along the roadside, punctuated by the occasional diner and a whole lot of nothing. Here, well, after two hours of driving, is where you’ll find Helena Christensen’s second home, in a little town in the Catskill Mountains. Her first residence is an apartment in Manhattan’s West Village, which the model-turned-photographer-turneddesigner (see staerkandchristensen.com for her irresistible sunglasses and shoes) shares with Mingus, her 18-year-old son with actor and former partner Norman Reedus. It’s here that the Red team had planned to photograph Christensen – until, at the last minute, she suggests travelling Upstate and, of course, we all jump at the chance. So, at 9am on a sunny Monday morning, we find ourselves arriving outside her own clapboard country home. I later discover she happened upon it most serendipitously, while shooting a story in the area for Italian Vanity Fair 12 years previously. ‘It needed so much work,’ she tells me. ‘But the elements were there. I could see that something magical would come out of it.’ It’s now painted a shade of soft navy, edged in white with a shocking pink rhododendron bush towering in the front garden and long grasses swishing up the path. Christensen emerges, smiling and entourage-free – her only companion being Kuma, an Australian shepherd dog, who dances between her bare feet as she welcomes us in, offering iced water, which is already laid out on the porch. Christensen is an incredibly good-looking woman, tall and angular with those famously pale eyes and sharp cheekbones– and her house is also heartbreakingly gorgeous. Haphazard, bizarre, beautiful and lived-in, it’s the kind of decor that takes decades to create, that only someone with an incredibly creative eye could pull together. Every surface is covered with curated piles of photography books, objets d’art or vases of blousy flowers. The walls are adorned with old paintings and each corner has a vintage chair, topped with a rolled antique quilt or embroidered cushion. In the kitchen, the open cabinets resemble an apothecary and the worktops are a jumble of oils and spices. In the living room sits a little glass desk filled with old glass Christmas baubles in gold and pink, next to that is a five-foot tall mermaid, carved from wood. There’s colour and pattern everywhere – blush pink, peacock blue, soft brown and pops of ochre. It’s romantic and feminine but soulful – every piece of furniture looks like it could tell a story. It’s the kind of house that would take for ever to dust.

After a whirlwind photoshoot (Christensen is, understandably, a pro at these things), we sit down to talk. By this stage, I just want to live like Helena – having noted everything from the tinkly jazz music she has playing in the background to the way her general laissez-faire attitude creates a convivial, laid-back atmosphere. I decide to figure out what it will take. Before we start chatting, she tells me two subjects are off limits: her relationship with her boyfriend of 10 years, Interpol singer Paul Banks (‘it’s nice to keep some things private’), and ageing. Of the latter, she adds, ‘It’s the first thing people ever ask women over a certain age, and I’m not interested. I don’t want to think about it or talk about it or let it define me.’ (For the record, she’s 49). Beyond these themes she is open, thoughtful and introspective. And this is what she says…

Let your destiny find you

My 20s were so intense and hectic, I never actually got to step off and breathe and figure out who I was or what I wanted. I knew I wanted to take pictures, but it was only later that photography became this deep, inner desire. Modelling happened to me, but it also opened so many other doors. In a way, it was one long photography education. It was also a way of meeting and learning from so many different talented people.

Now I take pictures for Unicef, am the creative director of the perfume company Strangelove NYC, and have Staerk and Christensen with my friend Camilla Staerk – we design shoes, clothes, bathing suits and sunglasses.

So, basically, I have so much to thank modelling for. It ended up being a stepping stone to so many other options.

Recognise that you are ever-changing

I think I’ll constantly be evolving, open and curious. I don’t think my head will ever be in the right place. Maybe when I’m 98! I never even ask myself, ‘Do you feel comfortable

now with your body?’ either. I grew up extremely skinny with a fast metabolism. Kids and adults would tease me and I spent my formative years trying to put weight on – that really shaped me. Although it left me with some issues as I got older, of course I also realised being skinny and being able to eat whatever I wanted made me fortunate. Now I’m food obsessed. I have no guilty pleasure in any area of life because I refuse to feel guilt. I love desserts – whipped cream is one of my favourite things to eat. Yesterday I found these giant olives stuffed with Gorgonzola, and when you took a bite it was like an explosion in your mouth. I ate all of them in one go.

Find your sanctuary

I don’t meditate, I can’t, but I swim every day. I wake up, I make coffee, then I go to my pool. I’ll swim lengths – it’s just big enough that you can do 10 strokes – but then later I go down to the river, which is a 10-minute walk from here, for a swim. I do it for my head, not for the exercise – I find it calming and therapeutic. When you go underwater with your ears covered and float, there’s no time, there’s no sound, there’s nothing, just your own breathing. It returns me to myself.

Appreciate the perfectly imperfect

I feel very comfortable when nothing goes together. Subconsciously I think that I have an aversion to anything that’s perfectly matched, even people or relationships or in a song – when there’s an off note, that’s the one that catches me. But I’m also a Capricorn, so I like things to be ordered – they have to be in their proper place, but in a very messy way.

Buy furniture with soul

I’ll occasionally shop at Ikea – I’ve just bought their dandelion light – and all my lanterns come from Restoration Hardware, but 80% of my furnishings were bought in Upstate New York. The Hudson Valley is a mecca for antique lovers! I have so much respect and admiration for anything that’s been done by hand – I think you get a little piece of their mind in that object, it’s like an extension of another human being. My favourite piece in this house is the big wooden mermaid. It’s by a Norwegian artist from the 1940s or 1950s and is made out of one tree trunk. I was getting a delivery and, as the truck opened, it was in the back. It was meant for somewhere else, but I wouldn’t let it leave.

Stay faithful to your style

I dress the way I live – messy, colourful and peculiarly put together. I shop at secondhand stores and online. I find much more joy in finding pieces that have been lived-in and are unique. I obviously have enough clothes, so I really have to justify an expensive designer piece, but I’ll repeat-buy jumpsuits, sweaters, big socks, and, currently, sneakers. I’ve found some great old Yves Saint Laurent and Chanel jumpsuits online. I like straight lines. I often buy men’s pants, which I’ll wear with a white T-shirt. Either that, or I buy romantic, bohemian dresses. I like the extremes of masculine and feminine. I still shop at places like & Other Stories and H&M, but I mainly go to the West Village thrift shop around the corner from me. My style hasn’t changed much over the years. In fact, I kind of circle around what I used to wear in my teens or 20s, like long vintage ballgowns. Love your kids selflessly…

When my son, Mingus, was a baby, I was so tired and stressed out by the constant need he had for me. Then an Irish friend of mine, who has four kids, said to me, ‘This is the time in your child’s life when you fill the bottle with love as much as you possibly can, because once that bottle is full, you’ve done all you can. When that child goes out into the world, that bottle is going to be emptied – so fill it now!’ When I looked at it that way, it didn’t feel as hard to be exhausted. …then let them grow beyond you Mingus and I have always been really good friends, but he’s 18 now and the teenage years change things. But

then they’re supposed to – you’re both cutting the cord. There are times when I feel I can’t deal with it any more, then the next day it’s amazing again. The waves are natural and I know it should be happening, which is what I try to remind myself during the more intense times. There’s nothing quite like a teenager to make you feel like the most uncool person in the world, though.

It’s humbling to realise your kid is outcooling you! Sometimes, even though he aggravates me, I know he’s right. Sometimes I say, ‘I really deserve a hug right now, and a long hug, not just one when you immediately tear away.’ But then I’ll be sitting on the couch and he’ll cuddle into me, and I’ll think, ‘I’m not going to say or do anything, I’m just going to enjoy this.’

Get your playlist from the next generation

For some reason, hip-hop went over my head because I was so focused on indie bands and electronic music, so from a very young age, Mingus and I explored that together. He opened up that whole side to my music taste. Now, when we drive Upstate, he’ll DJ and I’ll secretly Shazam all his songs. If it’s dark, he’ll look over and say, ‘I can see the blue light, Mum!’ Because, of course, you don’t want your mum to have all of your music.

Celebrate your own generation

I see Cindy [Crawford] and Christy [Turlington], sometimes Naomi [Campbell]. We go for dinners and it’s the loveliest thing because we were all so young when we met and share so many incredible and incredibly strange memories, which in some ways means there will always be a special bond between us.

Let literature guide the way…

Reading a great book is like having an amazing friend with you for a while. A lot of my personality is how it is because of books that changed me when I was younger. The most influential were The White Hotel by DM Thomas, Bonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan, She’s Come Undone by Wally Lamb and Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House On The Prairie. That last one probably has 50% to do with how I live, interior-decorate and dress. I dressed like her throughout my whole teenage years.

…and break your heart

I like to reread the biography on Diane Arbus by

Patricia Bosworth. It’s unbelievable, really inspiring and every time I read it I hope the ending might change in a strangely naïve way [Arbus committed suicide aged 48]. It’s like reading The White Hotel – there are a couple of pages in it that always make me cry, even though I must have read them 15 or 16 times. They grab me by the heart. I’m the same with music – True Colours by Cyndi Lauper always gets to me. I remember listening to her tape as a teenager at my grandparents’ house and trying not to get emotional in front of them. It was so raw, like an open wound of her inner emotions.