Power Lunch With Jeanne Damas and Helena Christensen

Jeanne Damas and Helena Christensen meet me for breakfast for lunch at Sant Ambroeus in the West Village. We order pancakes with fresh market berries and bananas, eggs benedict, and a three-egg omelette served with roasted potatoes. While they may not look it, the two friends only recently met in-person for the first time, the day before the shoot for Damas’ beloved French label Rouje’s Summer 2025 capsule collection that Christensen stars in. “I wanted to beautifully showcase the harmony and strength of women: that they can embrace it all, and their possibilities are boundless,” says Damas, who found a kindred spirit in the model and photographer. I last saw the two the other evening at an intimate yet informal dinner hosted in Constance Govare’s modern loft in TriBeCa to celebrate the new collection. Artists, dancers, creatives, and actresses sat around sunken couches sipping cocktails out of delicate glassware, surrounded by long-stem pink tulips and lace-curtain skirts. Today, still buzzing from their collaboration, they reflect on their personal style, finding inspiration in everyday life, and who they are before the clothes.

Jeanne Damas: I've always admired your style, and you were often on our Rouje mood-boards. Not only your work as a model but also paparazzi pictures with your personal clothes. You have a very artistic approach to everything, be it what you are wearing, the photos you take, or even how you arrange some stones and other pieces you find on your trips. All this really reflects your way of looking at things.

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Helena Christensen: The best way I can describe it is that I'm a grown-up Pippi Longstocking who's now an adult woman but still mixes colors, patterns, and fabrics. I don’t actually put much thought into how I dress, but if something ends up looking too perfect or feels too constricted, then I make sure to change that.

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‍JD: Everybody thinks that French women have the best style, but personally I'm always in awe of the freedom and creativity of women in New York. I love to get inspired on my trips here. It's sort of funny as people think of me as a stylish person, but I dress the same everyday. I like to wear what I call “my uniform,” some high-waisted jeans, ballerinas, an oversized cashmere sweater, and a trench coat in winter, and a wrap dress like our Gabin with mules in summer. I haven't really changed much stylewise since my teens. My first muse was and still is my mother: She always had a very feminine style, wrap dresses, high heels. Another big source of inspiration are the women in Pedro Almodóvar movies, particularly the bold colors and prints they wear. I think that it has more to do with an attitude or an allure.

Beverly Nguyen: Helena, what was the first Rouje item you bought?

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HC: I have a feeling it was a pair of red shoes or a red bag, because I’m obsessed with red and Rouje has perfected items in the best red. Then I discovered that I’m in love with every single shoe Rouje has ever created. I also fell in love with the wrap dresses, the cardigans, and the high-waisted jeans.

JD: The first time we actually met was the day before our shoot when you came over to the studio to do a quick fitting. I was very happy to finally meet as we had been talking by messages for a while. You’re so down to earth and easy going that the connection was instant, plus we could speak in French! Not only are you absolutely lovely, but you speak five or six languages.

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HC: Sometimes it’s good to meet your idols. I always thought everything about you seemed so effortlessly cool, and you seemed to have this quirky femininity about you. There is still the child inside of you but you absolutely know what you’re doing with your life and career—that’s the vibe you and your brand were giving off before I knew you. And then when we met, all that was spot on.

BN: Jeanne, your father was a chef and you grew up in restaurants, how has this influenced you?

JD: I basically grew up in my parents' restaurant as it was on the ground floor of our flat. My sister and I would eat dinner with the team every evening before the service started. I've spent a lot of time observing the clients and inventing stories in my head about this world of adults. As a kid I would speak to everybody in the restaurant—I think I got my more social side from this time. 

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BN: Helena, you’ve worked on both sides of the camera, how does one inform the other?

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‍HC: They inform one another so much. I started out as a photographer, and then when I was given the chance to work as a model in Paris, I figured that hopefully I could learn a lot from the photographers I would be working with. I ended up having the most incredible photography education from true masters. I will never get over how unbelievably lucky working as a model has been for me; it has given me so much, and absolutely the best part of it all has been working with legendary photographers and learning directly from them.

BN: Can you run me through an ideal day off?

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HC: When I wake up and hear rain on my window, I'm instantly happy because I love wearing rain boots and raincoats, and I like when New York is empty. I then sit in a bathtub with low, hot water and lots of bubbles for a while and take my dog Kuma for a walk to my favorite little coffee store, where I get a gigantic latte. Then, my dog and I have breakfast, probably porridge with butter, bananas, and blueberries, or seed bread with Bethmale goat cheese while listening to my favorite radio station, WKCR 89.9, which is on from the second I wake up till the second I fall asleep. I organize my apartment, make the bed, air out and spend a little time on my terrace. Then I either go to my boxing gym and workout for an hour or take a long walk along the river with Kuma; I take a lot of photos on these walks. In the afternoon, I might work for a few hours and then meet up with a friend for a drink and go out for dinner, or I’ll cook at home and binge on some series. Or I might go to a bar with friends and dance and laugh and then to bed.

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JD: Since I'm a mother most of my days off are dedicated to my kids, so there will be a lot of time on playgrounds or if we can, we spend the weekend in the countryside to have a break from the city life.

BN: What’s your trick staying sane with a hectic schedule?

JD: To not get too overwhelmed when busy times are ahead, I try to really focus on one day at a time. I focus on what I have to do that day and not overthink about what is to come. Another tip is to separate your work from private life by putting your phone on airplane mode until you leave the house in the morning.

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HC: Sometimes you stay sane, other times you don’t. But I believe that my grounded upbringing certainly has helped all these years of being in a very hectic and intense business. I do escape and go upstate as often as I can; being in nature or swimming in a river immediately makes me feel incredibly sane.

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BN: When do you feel the most powerful?

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HC: There’s always so much talk about ‘How powerful do we feel in these clothes? I'm like, You know what? Who gives a shit about all of that? I feel the most powerful in nature, when I’m sitting in an icy river in the dead of winter, and I’m surrounded by trees while the wind is howling.

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JD: I don't know if I want to feel powerful. I think for me it's more important to feel good, to be in line with myself and to have healthy relationships with the people who surround me. For dressing, it's about putting something on and having a really good feeling about it. 

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HC: Women don’t need more restrictions on our bodies. We want to feel joy in our clothes.