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Twiggy’s look was Sixties woman personified g“oI thnoughet th em worlda hadd ” Plunged into the heart of Swinging Sixties London at the age of 16 Twiggy has proved to be one of the more enduring icons of the era. By Simon Evans

“I can’t bear it HERE ARE certain images a young age. An early role model was 16,” read Deirdre’s breathless copy. that define an era, and Jean Shrimpton, ‘The Shrimp’, the Although she was slight for a model – five when people say: Twiggy’s androgynous face, English fashion icon who had appeared foot six inches in height, weighing in at ‘Oh she’s 50, she all short hair and eye lashes, on the cover of Vogue in 1962, and whose eight stone, and with a 31-23-32 figure – T peering out from the pages photos Lesley would admire during the article hailed Twiggy’s “new kind of of Vogue in 1966, seemed to perfectly breaks from her Saturday job at a streamlined, androgynous sex appeal”. shouldn’t be capture a time of personal liberation and hairdressers in central London. Looking back on that sudden rush of wearing that’” sexual experimentation. Emboldened by Shrimpton’s success, fame from the vantage point of 50 years, Twiggy – dubbed the “Face of 1966” by Lesley had her hair styled and cut short at Twiggy told the Daily Mail ’s You no less an authority than the Daily Express the fashionable hairdressers Leonard of magazine, “I was this funny, skinny little – was Sixties woman personified. Smart, Mayfair, which was looking for someone thing with eyelashes and long legs, who independent and sexually ambiguous to model its new crop haircut. Professional had grown up hating how I looked. I this was a woman who would not settle photos were taken, which were hung in thought the world had gone mad.” for the traditional conveyor belt of the salon, where they were noticed by Just a month after the Daily Express school-marriage-children-housewife. Deirdre McSharry, a fashion journalist story Twiggy, as she was now universally Most importantly, the petite 16-year-old, with the Daily Express . known, was flying to New York for the formerly known as Lesley Hornby, came More photos were commissioned by Vogue shoot that would make her an from good working-class stock, having the paper and a few weeks later international star. been born in the London suburb of Lesley – rechristened Twiggy by boyfriend A year later, when she flew out to the Neasden in 1949, the daughter of a and manager Nigel Davies (who would United States to work with the celebrated carpenter and joiner. himself take on the rather grand-sounding photographer Richard Avedon for the first Nicknamed ‘Twigs’ because of her moniker of Justin de Villeneuve) – was a time, Twiggy was greeted by a heaving slim build, Lesley was taught to sew by star. “The Cockney kid with a face to pack of paparazzi and fans and was

her mother, Nellie – a factory worker – at launch a thousand shapes... and she’s only the subject of a 100-page feature in the t O T O H P

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New Yorker magazine, with Life and Justin Villeneuve, who had overseen Newsweek also reporting on what they her career for the previous seven years. see that now – but I don’t think I called “the Twiggy phenomenon”. A new chapter was opening up in her was beautiful.” During the mid-Sixties Twiggy and life. Striking up a friendship with the Whereas back in the Sixties she was Justin were at the epicentre of Swinging maverick film director Ken Russell, often photographed in a miniskirt, London, that loose conflagration of pop with whom she shared a passion for old today it’s more likely to be a smart stars, aristocrats, fashion designers and Hollywood movies, Twiggy appeared as jacket and skinny jeans. gangsters who inhabited the same an extra in Russell’s controversial movie She cites Katharine Hepburn fashionable clubs and attended the The Devils , following it up with a approvingly, “who brought polo necks same exclusive parties. leading role in Russell’s adaptation of and trousers into fashion. That is so Looking back on those years Sandy Wilson’s The Boyfriend , a much sexier than a low-cut dress with Twiggy is amazed she was able to pastiche of Twenties Hollywood everything hanging out.” keep her sanity. “The thing is, when musicals. That role earned her two Needless to say, Twiggy still looks O T

you’re 16, you don’t feel young. At O Golden Globe awards and in 1973, great, which is why, in her early Fifties, H P

the time you think you’re quite K with her trademark androgynous looks she was taken on by Marks and C O T S

grown up. It wasn’t until much later, fashionable again, she graced the cover Spencer to front an advertising Y M

when I had a daughter and she got A of David Bowie’s Pin Up s LP. campaign. She’s still recording, too, L A / S C

to be 16, that I looked at her and I Signing to Mercury Records she releasing the album Romantically P T R

thought, ‘Oh my God, I was that young A released two albums in the middle of the Yours in 2011, while also acting as K U

when it happened.’ © decade but scored her greatest triumph a judge on the American TV show “It’s amazing, really, that I didn’t go Twiggy with husband Leigh Lawson since her Sixties heyday in the 1983 America’s Next Top Model . Broadway musical My One and Only , Last year she became a grandma, stark raving bonkers. I was so young which earned a coveted Tony nomination twice, Carly having a daughter Joni that it all went over my head. I was so for Best Actress In A Musical. and Twiggy’s stepson Jason a son, naïve, but I was lucky in that everything “What happened to me in the Sixties Solomon. She also launched a new happened to me so fast that I never had – I will never be able to eclipse that,” fashion collection through M&S to try to climb up the ladder. When she told The Guardian in 2009. “I and has also just created a new you’re trying to make it, that’s realised that a long time ago, even beauty collection for the same store. when you’re vulnerable.” though I’m much prouder of starring Explaining the ethos behind her At the height of her fame Twiggy was on Broadway. Eight shows a week is fashion collection she told the Mail , “I’ve commanding fees of £80 an hour for hard work. That’s a real achievement, long since learned you don’t have to suffer photoshoots, and brought out a line of whereas what happened before – that to look fabulous – while I also believe firmly her own clothes, known as Twiggy just happened to me.” that age is no barrier to style either. Dresses. The combination of her thin Today, Twiggy and her husband of 28 “The notion that you should dress figure, boyish hairstyle and striking, years, actor Leigh Lawson, divide their your age is anathema to me – I can’t dark eyelashes proved irresistible to time between a smart central London bear it when people say: ‘Oh she’s 50, fashion magazine editors, and by the apartment and a coastal getaway in she shouldn’t be wearing that.’

O end of the decade Twiggy had been Southwold. Daughter Carly, from her “In my book, dressing is about T O H

P photographed by Richard Avedon, first marriage to the late American actor attitude, not age. I’ve got items in my

K “You can’t C

O Cecil Beaton, Helmut Newton, Guy Michael Witney, has embarked on a wardrobe that Carly and her friends T S

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M Bourdin, Norman Parkinson and her career in the fashion industry, lust after, and vice versa. T

A be a clothes O L H A / P

close friend Linda McCartney. including a stint as a print designer with “I think it’s rather sad that some of Y K R C A R O

A pretty face doesn’t last forever, and Stella McCartney. our posher shops only go up to a size T B hanger for your I S L

Y E R in 1970 Twiggy officially retired from Looking back to her early modelling 14. If you’re comfortable with your M A U L T A C / I modeling, saying “you can’t be a days, when she was down to about six size, you should be able to wear what entire life” D P

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clothes hanger for your entire life.” and a half stone, makes Twiggy you want… Appropriate and stylish but S S E L L R A P

Three years later she broke up uncomfortable. “Much too thin,” she comfortable, too – the perfect L © A I R

personally and professionally with told The Guardian , “I had a look – I can combination in my book.” O

With daughter Carly T C I P

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