But, Happily, Original Supermodel Helena Christensen Will Talk About Her Pole-Dancing, Piano-Playing, Opera-Singing
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elena Christensen was arrived late to the profession, at 19, and after never your typical she had her son she quit full-time modelling supermodel. Even in the at 30. Even in those 11 years, she seemed as if days of the ‘Magnificent she could take or leave the whirlwind of the Seven’, as she, Naomi catwalk, and the fame that came with it. Campbell, Linda It should come as no surprise, then, that Evangelista, Christy Turlington, Cindy the day before I am due to meet her in New Crawford, Elle Macpherson and Claudia York, which has been her home for the past Schiffer were dubbed in the 1990s, Danish- 17 years, I receive a message requesting that born Helena always seemed set apart from we meet not in a hip café or restaurant, the other members of the A-list modelling but instead in a tiny public garden, close to sorority. Her beauty was more bohemian her apartment in Manhattan’s West Village. and accessible, her ethos earthier. She Unfortunately, the morning of our ‘I won’t talk about gettIng old–no man ever gets asked’ But, happily, original supermodel Helena Christensen will talk about her pole-dancing, piano-playing, opera-singing lifestyle. Jane Mulkerrins went to meet her Massaux/Lumity Jennifer 1 8 STELLA STELLA 1 9 ‘I don’t want to be a poster model for somebody who is half-dead and still looking good’ interview arrives lashed with rain, but 48-year-old Helena will not be deterred and insists on keeping our outdoor rendezvous; thankfully, the downpour is over by mid- afternoon. And so it is that I find one of the world’s most photographed women shivering slightly in a summer dress on a damp bench among the roses. ‘It’s a really lovely little secret place,’ she says of our surroundings. ‘And because the garden has walls around it, it keeps a higher Clockwise from above A glossy return in 2011; temperature, so butterflies that are only her current campaign for Debenhams; Chanel usually seen down south are also found s/s 1992; with Michael Hutchence in 1994 here,’ she tells me, as one flutters past. ‘I like to just be in nature,’ she smiles. Helena has a weekend home in the Catskills, a few hours north of the city, where ‘tidying up and organising are my two favourite pastimes. It brings me so much joy to attack my bathroom cupboards and get everything organised.’ But for all this apparent homeliness, Helena harbours a rock’n’roll side too. Her Instagram feed is a gallery of selfies with her music-industry friends Nick Cave, Bono and Noel Gallagher. In her 20s, she spent five years dating the late INXS frontman Michael Hutchence, and she has been in a relationship with Paul Banks of the band Interpol for nine years. She is, of course, outrageously beautiful: tall and slender with bronzed skin, green observes with a shrug. But in her new role and it makes people read and interpret feline eyes and an impossibly angular bone as ambassador for Lumity, an anti-ageing everything differently. It diminishes us in structure. Today, she’s make-up free, her supplement designed to improve skin, hair so many ways and it starts early for women. brown hair tumbling around her shoulders. and nails, boost energy levels and support As soon as you pass 35, it’s like, “Mmm, now It’s somewhat galling to hear that she overall wellness, she is genuinely you’re nearing the time where it will all does not subscribe to a diet of green juice enthusiastic. ‘Honestly, it is amazing. Your start to go”; [as if] all that’s going to happen and self-deprivation to stay in such enviable skin becomes so much brighter, now is a rapid progression towards old shape. ‘I’m a total food lover – I love cheese, smoother and tighter. You might not age. I don’t want to be a poster model and fast food; I’m a sucker for a Whopper,’ notice yourself, because you look in for somebody who is half-dead and she freely admits. ‘And I love condiments. the mirror every morning, but still looking good.’ I don’t want to eat anything without people’s responses are like, “What She will, however, vouch for the mayonnaise. But you’ve got to buy the real are you using on your skin?”’ fact that her energy levels have been stuff, not that low-calorie, non-fat shit.’ A hefty, twice-daily dose of revolutionised. ‘I was never She began boxing 12 years ago, in a bid vitamins, minerals, antioxidants somebody who jumped out to offset any potential impact of her eating and amino acids, Lumity claims of bed early in the morning habits. ‘When I was younger I did nothing, to counter the effects of ageing and went at it, but these but then realised I needed an intense form from the inside out. But that’s [supplements] have started of workout so I could keep up my obsession not an aspect Helena wishes to to have that effect upon me.’ with eating,’ she says. ‘Today, I’m proud of discuss. ‘I don’t want to talk Helena estimates she myself – I got up and did an hour of pole about getting old at all,’ she spends a third of her time dancing, and then went straight to yoga – so says, firmly, when I broach the modelling – she is currently tonight I will have a starter, pasta and subject. ‘No man ever gets the face of Debenhams – a cheese, and feel absolutely fine about it.’ asked about the fact that he is third taking photographs She doesn’t much like talking about nearly 50, but with women, they herself, and a third on other Getty Images beauty regimes. ‘It gets a little tedious,’ she even put our age in the headline, projects. Her own pictures, STELLA 2 1 ‘Every job was a standout moment – but sometimes it was almost too much’ which she describes as ‘moody, gloomy, it was like unless they were there with me,’ poetic’ in style are mainly commissioned by she says. ‘Same with my friends – I made ‘underground arty magazines’, for whom sure that any time I could, I would bring she shoots subjects such as the rapper Tyga them along. My girlfriends from Denmark and singer The Weeknd. are still my friends. Having experienced it Her personal projects, meanwhile, all together keeps you closer for life.’ include her brand of perfume oil, Dead of She spends every summer in Copenhagen, Night, and Staerk & Christensen, the where ‘everyone in my family lives around company she runs with her friend Camilla the corner from each other. We have at least Staerk, designing clothes, jewellery and one meal a day together.’ Her mother now home interiors. ‘We’ve just signed a runs a second-hand shop while her father contract to create houses from scratch,’ indulges his hobby full-time. ‘He’s been a she tells me, excitedly. The high-end lifelong horse gambler, so that’s his job now.’ prefabricated homes will be produced by Helena’s son, Mingus, 17 (whose father is Revolution, which has also worked with the From above With fellow super Linda Evangelista her ex-partner, The Walking Dead actor designer Tom Dixon and the late architect in 1997; with son Mingus; with partner Paul Norman Reedus), has one year of high Zaha Hadid. ‘I’ve always been fascinated Banks; Lumity’s anti-ageing supplements school to go. ‘He wants to do film-making by architecture, but I obviously and screenwriting,’ she says. And unlike can’t sit down and technically other model offspring, such as Cindy design a house with the right Crawford’s daughter Kaia Gerber, he has proportions. So you work with not yet followed in his mother’s footsteps somebody who can.’ – although there have been offers. ‘I would Helena grew up on a small never hold him back if he wanted to do it, island that forms part of the but I would probably be happier if he Danish capital, Copenhagen, didn’t,’ Helena admits, adding that the where her father worked as a industry has changed dramatically since typographer and her mother, her heyday. ‘Because of social media,’ she originally from Peru, worked for sighs. ‘I know a lot of the younger girls SAS, the national airline. ‘You [her friends include Martha Hunt and should always have one person Caroline Brasch Nielsen] and it frustrates in your family who works for an them deeply that they’re booked for a airline,’ notes Helena, who, job not because of their personality or along with her younger sister their physique, but based on how many Anita, spent her childhood followers they have.’ reaping the benefits of family While she may not want to talk about travel concessions. ageing, she admits to being somewhat She won Miss Universe obsessed with mortality. ‘My mind very Denmark at 18, but then promptly took off quickly goes to dark places,’ she says, for a year backpacking around the world. ‘I cheerfully. ‘I feel like I’ve got to cram in never really had ambitions,’ she confesses. everything I still want to do in life.’ That When she landed back in Denmark, includes revisiting some old hobbies, however, she needed to make some money, as well as picking up a few new ones. so decided to give modelling a shot. She She’s started playing the piano again, went to Paris for a week of castings, and she after decades away from it, and is about was soon working for the likes of Mario to begin taking opera lessons, much to Testino and the late Herb Ritts, eventually the amusement of her son.