Whether you admire his photographs, watch him as a judge on America’s Next Top Model each week, or drool over his own model looks, Nigel Barker possesses a wide array knowledge on what it takes to become the most beautiful you. In September 2010, Nigel Barker’s Beauty Equation: Revealing a Better and More Beautiful You, was released and has been making a splash among young women all over the world. Illinois State Her Campus had the opportunity to have a one-on-one conversation with Nigel about his book, discovering your own beauty equation, and why your college years are an important part of your journey in life.
HC: When did you decide to write this book? What or who inspired you to talk about this subject?
Nigel Barker: There are a lot of things that inspired me to write a book about what was truly beautiful. The tipping point was when my little boy, Jack, a couple years ago was doing a show-and-tell on me at school, and he asked me why I took photographs. And I said, “I always try and take beautiful photographs, Jack. That’s my job, it’s to try and capture the beauty in people.” He turned around and said to me at three years old, “What is beautiful dada?” I remember looking at him and thinking, oh, I’m going to have a quick answer, and at the same time, the more I looked at him, I wanted to tell him exactly what it was, the more I realized it was a big conversation.
I looked at him and the only thing I could think of that was truly beautiful to me that would resonate with him was his mother, so I said, “Beautiful is your mother.” He looked at me and kind of grunted and off he strolled in his tricycle.
That evening I was sitting down with my wife, started to write down various things I looked for to create a beautiful picture. They were things like confidence, sense of humor, authenticity, what was it that I found alluring about people, and then what was it that made people confident, and then what was it that had made me confident. Various humanitarian acts, working in the compassionate field. So, the book ended up sort of writing itself.
HC: Can the beauty equation be a faction in helping young women and men over come self-image issues and body issues to find their true beauty?
Nigel Barker: I’d like to think it can, and I know for some people it has. I didn’t set out as a doctor to change anything. I wrote to my fan base, the people who either respected what I had to say, or at least listened to what I had to say for them to really know what I was about, and what I personally feel is important.
I do know that it has taken shape all over the world, and I come across people who would say it made huge differences too and I think it’s beautiful when you can inspire, quite frankly, just one person. If you can make a difference in their life, you’ve made a difference.
The idea here is really to sort of say to people, look deeper. If you truly want to be most beautiful on the outside as well as the inside, by the way, start with the in. If you’re not healthy inside, then you really can’t be healthy outside.
HC: Is discovering your own personal beauty equation something to apply throughout your entire life?
Nigel Barker: I think we’re all a work in progress, first of all. I think at any one point, it’s never over. If you think you know it all, then you’ve lost, really. It’s all over at that point. I know that myself it’s never ending, I’m constantly learning and realizing, I could do better. Strive to gain in knowledge, and actually, the older one gets, the more one realizes how little one knows in many respects, which is both terrifying, but also refreshing. Without that life isn’t very rejuvenating, and I feel you need that.
HC: In addition to your book, you created an interactive website, also entitled the Beauty Equation. Why did you decide to create this accompanying website and what do you think the strengths of the website are?
Nigel Barker: As we all know, we live in a digital world; the Internet is key to everyone. People seem to be more related to the Internet than their own family almost. We talk via text, Twitter, e-mails, Facebooking- that’s just the reality of the world we live in.
I wrote the book, but I wrote it not for myself but for everyone else. I kind of felt that what was so exciting about the website part of it, was really it’s nothing to do with me, it’s everybody else’s story. It’s not my story. I chime in and I certainly write things about that I’m interested.
The wonderful thing is seeing what everyone else has written, and how everyone else has had their own beauty equation, and their own ideas, and their own chapters, and their own concepts, and their own issues, their own causes, and all of the sudden, this online community is just exploding.
HC: Do you have any advice for Her Campus readers on how to find their own beauty and success in life?
Nigel Barker: Find a cause, find an issue that’s in a sort of a humanitarian field or philanthropic field, and work in that field as well as your professional field. You somehow have to make time. There’s literally nothing that’s better for your spirit, and also better for the local community.
As a result of that, I have seen people who have really been down and out, I’ve seen people who feel like they have nothing to give, and their whole confidence is extremely low, literally start working in a soup kitchen and volunteering once a week or once a month even, and literally finding themselves.
HC: Do you have any last advice for your fans here at Her Campus about their time in college?
Nigel Barker: I never went to college, I was meant to study medicine, and I was meant to go to a teaching hospital in London, and I ended up breaking into the fashion business through modeling and all that ended. I basically went through the college of life. I feel that one of the most important things is to realize how important that education is, and at the same time to realize that life is much more complex than that, and you have to experience all elements of life, and to keep your eyes open, and don’t think that whatever you’ve learned that that’s it by any stretch, it’s just the tip of the ice berg. To keep learning, to keep your eyes open and your ears open, and to continue to swallow all information you possibly can.
Links to check out:
http://www.beautyequation.com/
http://www.amazon.com/Nigel-Barkers-Beauty-Equation-Revealing/dp/0810996421