‘I’m in better shape than I was at 25’
She’s as rock’n’roll as Kate, as pin-up perfect as Claudia and, like the rest of the iconic supers, back fronting fashion campaigns again. Here, the fabulous-at-forty Helena Christensen reveals what it takes to still look hot – and why she’s never lived with a man.
“Oh!” gasps a wide-eyed Helena Christensen, spinning around to take a bowl that a member of In Style’s crew has fetched at her request. “It’s here! The whipped cream is here!” she calls across the studio to anyone who’ll listen and piles two hefty spoonfuls on to a chunk of chocolate cake. This, after a sizeable lunch of chicken, spinach tart, roast veg and salad. “I eat like a pig,” she admits, mouth still full.
It’s hard to believe two decades have passed since the former Miss Denmark burned up the lens in crooner Chris Isaak’s sizzling “Wicked Game” video. And, despite her appetite, if anything has changed about her bombshell curves, it’s that they’re better. But it’s impossible to hate her, because unlike certain supermodel peers, Helena is the anti-diva.
Professional to the core, she arrives bang on time at New York’s famous Milk Studios, a short walk from her West Village home. She’s all smiles and hugs, the embodiment of effortless cool in a tuxedo-striped Vanessa Bruno skirt and Mike & Chris leather bomber that hide her figure, but when she emerges from the changing room in sheer, clingy Alexander McQueen, jaws drop.
In front of the camera, she is mesmerising: she literally fizzes, broadcasting sex with a half smile, knees slightly bent to make her body all the more Jessica Rabbit. No wonder the likes of Michael Hutchence and (rumour has it) Leonardo DiCaprio were helpless to resist (she’s been with Paul Banks, US rock band Interpol’s 29-year-old front man, since 2007).
But don’t think that being 40 is hampering her career either – far from it. Along with her Nineties modelling contemporaries, she’s been enjoying another major “moment”, which has seen them turn from supermodels to icons, with big labels falling over themselves to sign them again. (Think Helena looking incredible as a sexy pirate in the Agent Provocateur ads, Linda Evangelista in the Prada campaign and Claudia Schiffer in the Chanel ads.)
And then there’s all Helena’s other careers. The multitasking dynamo’s photography has been published in a number of glossy magazines including Spanish and Italian Vogue and exhibited in one-woman shows, she was the launch creative director of hip US fashion title Nylon and owned a boutique in New York until her business partner moved home to Denmark last year. But her biggest achievement, she insists, is her nine-year-old son Mingus (with her ex, model/actor Norman Reedus). “It’s a genius thing that you can create your own best friend,” she laughs.
Her interview (plus one more picture!) after the jump! (more…)
Posted Wednesday, March 4th, 2009 at 3:15pm
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