This season home is where the art is, plus food

This season home is where the art is, plus food and fashion on the go!
PROP AND WARDROBE STYLING BY MICHELLE YOO
Nigel
Barker and
his wife,
Crissy,
hang tight
in their
eclectic
living room.
Viewfromthe‘Top’
Fashion photographer Nigel Barker doesn’t need Tyra Banks to enjoy the high life. The former
America’s Next Top Model judge and new host of The Face invites us inside hisWest Village digs.
By Alison Prato - Photography by Michael Edwards
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:model home
“Nearly everything in [the apartment]
is from our travels on Top Model,” says
Nigel. Daughter Jasmine, 4, sits on a
Moroccan rug, while son Jack, 7, hangs
close to Pops, who admires not only his
beautiful wife Crissy on a daily basis but
also the Hudson River, which their West
Village abode overlooks.
B
Paintings by Bryson Brooks, an artist friend from Austin, Texas, who visits New York often, adorn the walls
(above). Classic New York pizza is a frequent family meal (right).
British photographer Nigel Barker and his beautiful wife,
Cristen “Crissy” Chin Barker, moved into their West Village
apartment 10 years ago for one simple reason: the waterfront
view. A row of windows in their living room and another in
their bedroom—not to mention a common 4,000-square-foot
rooftop—reveal an unobstructed vista of the Hudson River.
It makes sense. Nigel is a visual guy. On America’s Next Top
Model, where he appeared as a judge for 10 years before being
unceremoniously dumped on the heels of the show’s 18th season last April, he regularly captured and commented on beauty.
Crissy, a former Cover Girl model who’s appeared in Glamour, Cosmopolitan and French Vogue, describes their museumlike home in a 154-unit doorman building as a “souk.” Nearly
every inch is filled with art, photos and family keepsakes. Nigel,
40, and Crissy, 37, have traversed the globe throughout their
careers, collecting eye-catching pieces along the way.
“It’s like those little outdoor market places in Morocco, with
knickknacks and collections,” Crissy says, sitting as close as
possible to Nigel on their black leather couch. Even after 18
years together, they’ve got chemistry in spades.
“It’s colorful, and it’s real,” Nigel says, continuing her
thought. “It has a heartbeat. Everything means something.”
Family photos are juxtaposed against art and artifacts: Moroccan rugs, a 20-pound Japanese kimono and a prehistoric shark’s
tooth that’s 2 million years old.
Their impossibly gorgeous children, Jack, 7, and Jasmine,
4, are a blend of Crissy’s Chinese, Irish, Russian and German
heritage and Nigel’s English, Sri Lankan and Portuguese roots.
They gleefully bounce from living room to playroom and back.
Nigel and Crissy first met through her agent in Milan. “That
night,” he explains, rubbing her knee, “I called my mom and
said, ‘I’ve met this girl, and I’m gonna marry her.’ The ground
moved. As beautiful as she is on the outside, she’s also got an
incredible heart.
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“This...is my mama,” Nigel says
proudly of the portrait of his mother,
a former Miss Sri Lanka. “Crissy said
whenever she’s in the kitchen she
feels like my mom’s staring at her.”
In their first apartment, the painting
was in the bedroom. “But she got put
in the hall, which is far more appropriate,” Crissy adds with a laugh.
“It’s colorful, and it’s real.
Everything has a heartbeat.
Everything means something.”
The rest of the
home, including the
bathroom (above),
kids’ bedroom (left)
and hallway (below),
is filled with old
family photos and
souvenirs. The red
chest (below left)
is from ABC Carpet
and Home, where
the couple shop
often; the framed
carved-stone figures behind them
come from Crissy’s
grandparents.
“I had the worst pickup line of all time,” Nigel continues. “I
had these terrible mosquito bites, big welts on my arm from the
night before. I looked at her and said, ‘You just arrived in Milan?
Mosquitoes are really bad this time of year—look at my arm!’ ”
The line worked. (Probably because it wasn’t a line.)
“You played it well, my dear,” Crissy says, giving him a peck.
After a cat-and-mouse courtship (“He chased me,” she says
with a wink), they got married in 1999 in her hometown of
Fairhope, Alabama, where she grew up in a family of four that
included a twin sister. (Nigel was raised in London and has five
siblings.)
Last spring, viewers cried scandal when their beloved Nigel
and fellow judges Jay Manuel and J. Alexander were suddenly
fired from the show—because “it needed a new boost,” star
Tyra Banks told Access Hollywood. Nigel remains diplomatic.
“I know it was tough on [Tyra] as well. It’s never easy to
fire someone, least of all, of course, a friend. At the same time,
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“These ballet shoes are wonderful,” says Nigel of the pair hanging
outside the kids’ room. “I shot
[ballerina Katie Boren] for a book,
and now she’s a friend. She actually danced at Jasmine’s birthday
party, and as a present, signed her
ballet shoes and gave them to her.
They hang there as a little bit of
inspiration for Jas.”
“Some people have been
comparing [The Face] to
The Voice. I’m very excited. It’s
going to be a great show.”
The master bedroom features more Asian-inspired pieces and bedding
by John Robshaw. A secondhand blackboard (right) hangs in the hallway
outside the kids’ room for them to scribble silly messages on.
this is business, and things change. She’s a good girl, a strong
woman, and she’s done a lot with her life. I take my hat off to
her, to be honest with you,” he says.
His favorite part of doing the show, he recalls, was forming relationships with the fellow judges: André Leon Talley,
Twiggy, Miss J and Mr. Jay, and Paulina Porizkova.
“We became good friends,” he says. “André came to one of
my [documentary] screenings the other day in shorts and a
T-shirt. That’s the real André.”
So will Nigel still tune in? “If I can, why not? It’s a great show.
The bottom line is, I’m happy for her, and [we’re] on to bigger
and better things ourselves. We’re excited for the next chapter
in all our lives.”
He’s certainly turned the page pretty quickly. In July Oxygen
Media announced that Nigel will play host to Naomi Campbell’s
buzzed-about new model project The Face, starring models Coco
Rocha, Karolina Kurkova and Banks’ catwalk frenemy, Naomi
Campbell herself.
“It’s a whole new take on the genre,” says Nigel. “Some
people have been comparing it to The Voice in that there will be
teams. I’m very excited. It’s going to be a great show.”
Filming starts this month, but Nigel still hopes to devote
some time to his other projects: making documentaries (he’s
produced and directed four to date) and publishing photobooks (his mother contributed recipes to an upcoming cookbook, and his tome Blossoming Beauties features nude poses of
Crissy while she was pregnant among other moms-to-be). All
this in addition to his Fashion Week fundraising effort for Nine
West Runway Relief, which helps fund breast cancer charities.
He also has great plans for quality time with his brood:
They’ll cook waffles, curries and soups. They’ll visit The
Intrepid. And when he and Crissy long for a romantic night out,
they’ll head to the rooftop of SoHo House for drinks or dart to
their favorite secret sake bar in the East Village.
“Another fun place we love is Spin Galactic,” Crissy adds, citing the ping-pong social club in the Flatiron District. “We were
there recently with some friends and ended up entering a dance
competition. But we came in second place!”
She playfully punches Nigel’s arm. “It was rigged!”
“Totally rigged!” he concurs. “Unbelievable!”
And with that, Nigel smiles, looks out the window and
admires the view.
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