Leaning against a tree in crowded Central Park, Kristen Stamper is wearing an orange ombré accordion-pleated skirt and a floral crop top that exposes her tiny waist.
The 5-foot-11 stunner poses for a photographer and smiles shyly at the camera as a pile of rubbernecking tourists stop to gawk and ask each other, “Who is that?”
But it’s just another day in the big city, where fashion shoots on the streets are as common as honking horns.
Except Stamper — a 20-year-old from Nashville, Tenn., who waits tables at Twin Peaks, basically the Hooters of the South — isn’t your average subject.
She’s a Romanichel Gypsy — and she’s hoping to become the first Gypsy supermodel.
“I want to be perfectly honest,” says Stamper in a sweet country drawl that accelerates when she gets excited, like when she slips into a beaded dress that shows off her slim pins. “My dream is to be a Victoria’s Secret model or a Maxim model.”
Stamper, who is known to family simply as “Trouble,” is shattering Gypsy social norms by pursuing her dream of catwalk fame. Last summer, she hopped on her first plane ride to the Big Apple to try to get signed by an agency.
Her fish-out-of-water adventure is chronicled in Thursday’s episode of “My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding” on TLC — the popular reality show that chronicles the blinged-out nuptials of Gypsy travelers all over the United States. Its season finale last July drew 1.4 million viewers — mostly women.
The spinoff of the beloved British series pulls back the trailer door on the lives of Romanichel Gypsies — and makes “Jersey Shore” look like a rerun of “Masterpiece Theatre.”
While there are no official statistics, the show estimates there are more than a million Gypsies living in the United States, with roughly 250,000 to 300,000 Romanichels, who are thought to be of English origin.
Romanichel women customarily marry young, rarely finish high school and stay home to keep their trailers spotless, while the men travel to earn money, primarily by doing paving jobs.
And it’s this insular way of life that the delicate-boned beauty is hoping to break free from.
“If I want to build a career, I can’t let my Gypsy culture hold me back,” says Stamper, who returned to New York to pose for The Post in hippie togs inspired by summer music festivals.
“[Modeling] is just so different and branching out from tradition. [Gypsies] are over-the-top in the way they dress, but when it comes to creatively exposing yourself, they don’t do it.”
Gypsy fashion might conjure images of swarthy women in broomstick skirts, printed peasant tops and head scarves, but the American Gypsy aesthetic is far from earthy and mystical.
Instead of looking into crystal balls, Gypsies wear them — on every inch of their bodies if possible.
“Bling is status,” says Sondra Celli, a Boston-based designer and the go-to dressmaker for Gypsies all over the country. “If Chanel, Versace and Dolce & Gabbana knew their clothes are in Gypsy campers, they’d probably have a heart attack.
“They have to have the best car, the best jewelry and the most rhinestone clothes,” adds Celli, whose pricey wedding dresses, ranging from $10,000 to $20,000, often appear on the show. “They brag in a different form. It’s the same thing as me saying, ‘My kid went to Harvard.’ ”
Stamper, however, describes her style as more laid-back.
“I like to dress fancy when I go out. I like the hipster thing. And I am more conservative compared to other Gypsies. I like the blingy stuff, but not too much,” she says. “You are going to find my episode very different from the rest.”
She was raised by a strict Gypsy grandmother, who forbade her from having a cellphone, wearing makeup and indulging in her voracious reading habit. She was told not to aim for the stars — but rather to look for a husband who could give her a handful of children and a trailer to clean.
Gypsies in general are taught to view outsiders — or “gorgers” as they call them — suspiciously because Gypsies feel they are unfairly stereotyped by them.
But despite Stamper’s sheltered upbringing, the self-described drama queen got the modeling bug after watching “America’s Next Top Model.”
“I fell in love with how artistic it could be. And [modeling] had always crossed my mind because I’m a bit taller and a little bit skinnier than I should be. I don’t think it’s just about being pretty,” says Stamper, who has posed for local shutterbugs in Nashville in the hope of landing a coveted spot in the Twin Peaks bikini calendar.
Still, she hopes her Gypsy heritage will help her stand out in a crowded field of wannabe models.
“Growing up, sometimes I wished I wasn’t a Gypsy. I wanted to be involved in sports, but my grandmother wouldn’t let me,” she says. “Looking back, I am glad I was brought up like that. It’s something that sets me apart, and I like to be original and different.”
And what will her fellow Gypsies think about her posing in a fashion spread for The Post?
“I am sure the Gypsies will think that I am dreaming too big,” says Stamper. “They will just say that I am gorger-fied, which isn’t a derogatory term. It just means that I am not as Gypsy as I should be, because I am doing this. But I know who I am and what I am. As long as I know, I don’t care what other people think.”
Fashion Editor: Serena French
Stylist: Anahita Moussavian
Photographer: Rene Cervantes
Makeup Artist: Caitlin Wooters for NARS
Hair Stylist: Michael Lollo for ORIBE
Location: The Roger New York