Nigel Barker, Noted Fashion Daddy

Nigel Barker has always felt just as comfortable in front of the camera as he has behind it. But over the last few months, fans have been seeing a lot more of the model-turned-“noted fashion photographer,” as Tyra Banks dubbed him during his near-decade-long run as an America’s Next Top Model judge: namely, his still well-defined, salt-and-pepper-spotted torso.

“I usually get, I don’t know, 50 little views on X. Then I posted this one picture of me topless, not even from the full waist up, and it got a million views,” Barker tells me, shaking his head between sips of English Breakfast tea at Soho House in the Meatpacking District. “I’m a 52-year-old man. I’ve got gray hair on my chest. I hardly think of myself as studly at this point…”

While Barker might not understand the appetite for his shirtless selfies, he’s more than happy to dish them up, whether it’s on X — where they’re sandwiched between his Wordle, Mini Crossword, and Connections scores — or alongside family photos on Instagram. “I’ve embraced it. I think it’s really fun. If anyone is interested in me still, whatever it is, I’ll take it,” Barker says. But there’s one key demo whose love he’s felt the most. “The gay community has always been really kind to me,” he adds. “I’ve never really seen sexuality as one thing or another. I think a lot of people probably think I’m gay, or thought I was, being on Top Model and being English.”

Barker, however, is a bonafide wife guy. He met Cristen Chin Barker when he was 22 and they were both modeling in Milan, but their upbringings couldn’t have been more different: Barker was a British boarding school kid whose mother had been a Miss Sri Lanka contestant; Cristen was raised by strict religious parents in Alabama. Yet it was love at first sight. “I literally, that day, called my mom and went, ‘I just met a girl and she’s going to be my wife,’” Barker says, with the giggly smile of a newlywed spread across his face.

What he didn’t anticipate was that Cristen and her twin sister, Kimberly (who was also present for their meet-cute), would lead him down a new career path entirely. “I first picked up a camera [because] I wanted to capture them and their beauty. It became an obsession of mine, and it's now been 30 years of these two people being my muse,” he says. Photographers have long been fascinated by twins — from Diane Arbus to Bruce Gilden — and you can see why the Chin Twins, as they’ve branded themselves on Instagram, are captivating subjects, with their racially ambiguous good looks (they’re of Chinese, Irish, and Norwegian descent) and body-bending, Cirque du Soleil-esque posing skills (both are yoga instructors who studied dance as kids). Barker says a commemorative book featuring decades of pictures is forthcoming.

For Barker, everything is this type of a family affair. After he signed on to judge Season 2 of ANTM in 2004, Cristen and their growing brood came with him. “My wife became my makeup artist, the guest judge makeup artist on the show, and the [on-air] spokesperson for CoverGirl,” he says, adding that his mother also appeared in a Bollywood-themed episode to teach the contestants how to wear a sari. “When Cristen had the babies, then the kids would come. I’ve got pictures of all them with Tyra, Miss J, Twiggy. My son actually said his first word with Twiggy, not with me.” (The Barker babies, who are now teenagers, have also gotten into the family business: Jack is an artist and designer, while Jasmine is a model.)

After 17 seasons on ANTM, Barker moved on from the reality TV juggernaut. And as he runs me through the projects he’s been a part of in the intervening years, I begin to feel like I’m in a Dos Equis commercial, sidled up in a corner booth next to The Most Interesting Man in the World.

First, there was the Sony-sponsored, limited-edition 8 Hours/Taylor Swift book he was the sole photographer on in 2012. “It was a day in the life of [Swift] that showed everything from her showing up in the car, to doing makeup and hair, to her singing and performing on set, to hanging out,” he says. “Her mum was there the whole time on set, editing the pictures with me, picking everything out — liking this, not liking that.”

Then, in 2016, Barker helped launch the celebrity-favorite gym, Dogpound, in downtown New York City, which he credits with keeping him in shirtless selfie shape. “Hugh Jackman was training to be Wolverine and [some friends of ours and I] would work out with him. We’d all bring our dogs and tie them up in the gym, so we nicknamed ourselves ‘The Dogpound,’” says Barker, who served as the gym’s chief marketing officer once they formalized their operation. “We were basically guys in their mid-40s, having a midlife crisis. But instead of buying a Corvette, we were trying to turn ourselves into Corvettes.”

Now he’s having a full-circle moment growing The Barker Company, a new liquor brand that specializes in ready-to-serve espresso martinis. The venture has found him back in business with former ANTM judge and public relations maven Kelly Cutrone (who helped him debut the drink at New York Fashion Week in September), and in touch with creative director Jay Manuel (the two were texting about the beverage shortly before our breakfast). “Sometimes, I pinch myself. I'm like, ‘You know, you’re actually living this life,’” he says. “I feel like I might just wake up at some point and be back in England in the rain.”

He’s never had to look far for inspiration. “I’m like, ‘What’s your hobby? Taking pictures and drinking? Oh, guess what? That’s what I do for a living,’” says Barker. “I like to do fun things and monetize them so I can continue to do them.”