Specs appeal: Tim Jefferies as he is now (RII SCHROER)  Unlike Sven-Göran Eriksson, currently touting his robotic sex life in Sven: My Story, Jefferies was always too gentlemanly to reveal intimate details of his liaisons. Perhaps more to the point, his girlfriends were too ladylike, too darn classy, ever to kiss and tell, although his first (unstarry) girlfriend once affectionately opined that when God was handing out brains, he gave Tim marbles. He remains friends with a great many of his exes, most notably Macpherson whom he squired for three years, which speaks volumes about his old-fashioned gallantry.  “I’ve been very fortunate that there’s never been any ill will or unpleasantness,” muses Jefferies. “But to my mind, if you spend time with someone in a relationship, however long or short, it’s so much better to be friends afterwards; it recognises there was something special between you.” Aaaah! Try telling that to Russell Brand and Katy Perry, or Harry Styles and Taylor Swift. But that’s Tim all over. Tim, Tim, nice but – truly, madly, deeply married and off the market.  He glows with contentment at family life, but it’s hard for the rest of us not to feel nostalgic for his hedonistic heyday, when models were Super and tellies were analogue, and a little conspicuous consumption added to the gaiety of the nation. “Life has got a lot greyer, a lot more dull in recent years,” concedes Jefferies. “The world has changed, but whether it has moved on or not, I couldn’t say. Either way, the general mood is more sombre; I lived a life back then that most single thirtysomething men dream of and it was terrific fun.  “But I have entered a new phase, I am embracing family life; I have two adorable children and it’s utterly blissful, I couldn’t be any happier.” The passage of time has been generous to Jefferies, whose model-magnet looks once prompted his close friend A A Gill to observe caustically he was “the sort of man you want to take outside and do really appalling things to with acid and a baseball bat”.  An imposing 6ft 3in tall, he retains his rangy physique, a full head of hair and bears an uncanny resemblance to a dark version of actor Owen Wilson. Even his oversized Maurice Saatchi-style glasses lend him a professional gravitas.  The ex-files: Jefferies dated Claudia Schiffer (pictured), Inés Sastre, Sophie Dahl and Kylie Minogue (AFP)  In his dapper three-piece suit he would be a shoo-in for the title role in The Thomas Crown Affair. But there’s an eccentric twist; his watch may be an IWC, a marque so pricey that it discreetly offers “finance options” on its website, but on his other wrist are seven funky bracelets, made by a jewellery designer friend.  Very avant-garde; still, what can you expect from a playboy? “Don’t call me that! It makes me cringe and it’s a complete misnomer,” begs Jefferies, only half-joking. “I’m not a playboy: I can’t fly a plane, I don’t own a string of polo ponies, I’ve always worked for a living, yet my private life always overshadowed my professional one. I hope that’s not the case any more.” Not since he stopped serial dating A-listers, got hitched – his good mate Tom Ford designed the bride’s gown – and started spending his nights changing nappies, at any rate.  But Jefferies does have a point; Hamilton’s Gallery, tucked around the corner from the Connaught hotel, represents leading contemporary photographers such as Annie Leibovitz, Albert Watson and Don McCullin and many of the late, great icons from the 20th century too; Horst P Horst, Herb Ritts, Jeanloup Sieff.  “You have to remember that when I was travelling around, it wasn’t just great fun meeting the people of the day, it was hugely interesting and stimulating,” says Jefferies. “I was mixing with the likes of Robert Mapplethorpe and Richard Avedon, Irving Penn and Helmut Newton; the absolute masters, whom I exhibited at the gallery.”  It sounds like the very definition of a charmed existence: one made possible, of course, by Green Shield Stamps, a company founded by his grandfather, Richard Tompkins, who also set up Argos. Jefferies, who has a sister, was raised in West Sussex by his mother, after his artist father walked out when he was seven. He was reportedly disinherited by his grandfather when he married Stark, something he’s neither confirmed nor denied. “I’m not particularly keen to put the record straight; it’s nobody’s business and I never talk about money,” he says. “With the benefit of hindsight, would I have married at 21? Probably not. Do I regret it? No, because it was an experience from which I learnt and grew; getting married is easy, but getting divorced is a whole other ball of wax.”  Unusually (for him) he’s not in touch with Stark, but is aware of her breast cancer battle and money travails. “She’s a fabulous girl,” says Jefferies, quietly. “I haven’t seen her for ages and remember we were married a long, long time ago, but if I did I would be extremely friendly.”  By all accounts, his wife is relaxed about her husband’s exes (three of them attended their wedding). Moreover, she is delighted about his latest heady love affair; in early summer this year the old gadabout was spotted slipping off to Paris on Eurostar, holding hands with his new girl. Jefferies shows me the resultant photos of his four-year-old daughter, Coco, on his mobile: “Here she is at Monet’s Water Lilies in the Musée de l’Orangerie, and there she is by the Eiffel Tower, which was the main reason she wanted me to take her to Paris. We ate out at restaurants, we shopped for silly pink bits and pieces and one night we had room service and had supper in our dressing gowns, which she thought was tremendously exciting.”  Malin stayed at their four-storey home in Holland Park with their 23-month-old son, Rex. “I can’t wait to take Rex away when he’s a bit older,” beams Jefferies. “He’s obsessed with cars, so it will probably have to be somewhere like the Monaco Grand Prix. My children are both so stereotypical; it’s as if they were hard-wired to like different things, but with the same fervour. I would love to have more children, but my wife isn’t so keen – she’s very practical, my wife.”  The soothing joys of domesticity and fatherhood are a natural progression for many a man-about-town. But, in truth, there was a moment when Jefferies was worried it might never happen, until a blind date, set up by mutual friends, resulted in a classic coup de foudre. “I would have settled down sooner but I couldn’t find the right person – but boy, was it worth the wait,” he says. “I’d been on a few blind dates, which were always disasters, but this was a humdinger.”  The rest is history. “I’ve lived a lot of my life on what most people saw as the other side of the fence where the grass was greener. But I’m utterly contented to be where I am now.” He is grateful not to be in the focus of paparazzi lenses. Relieved, too, not to be tarred as a “celebrity”. “Celebrity is like the word 'luxury’ or 'exclusive’; it just doesn’t have meaning any more. It’s so overused and misapplied; luxury was very different in the past,” he sighs.  Not that all his pleasures revolve around home and hearth. He enjoys shooting and has started to become something of an oenophile; as his knowledge of wine-growing increases, so does his cellar. “It’s quite a curse being a collector by nature,” he observes, although frankly his specialisms – models, pop stars, cars, watches, photographs, burgundies – don’t sound terribly onerous. But then, being Tim Jefferies has always been a bit of a blast. “When I look back at my life, I smile,” he says. “When I look to the future, I smile.” No prizes for guessing what he’s doing right now.
With ready money, fast cars and a string of model girlfriends, Tim Jefferies   made the most of his bachelor days. Now it seems he is happy to give it all   up for nappies and nap time