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I’ve never been one of those people who looks backwards,” says Twiggy, the former model who, at 16, was dubbed “The face of 1966” by the UK’s Daily Express newspaper.
“I never really think about the 1960s unless I’m doing an interview and someone brings it up,” she says. “Old pictures can do that. Whenever I travel to places like Italy, France or Bangkok, you’ll see my [younger] face on a T-shirt or bag... I can’t ever really get away from it. I am constantly reminded of the past.”
Born Lesley Hornby, she became famous and part of the UK’s fashion revolution while still in her teens thanks to her signature pixie haircut and the lithe figure which spawned her moniker, Twiggy. But it all started from a seemingly random moment in a Mayfair hair salon in 1966.
On that fateful day, little did she know that esteemed hairdresser Leonard Lewis was watching her from afar as she discussed a haircut with another stylist. “Leonard was like a film-star hairdresser at the time,” she recalls. “I was this shy kid in his Mayfair salon and he came over and introduced himself.
“He asked if he could cut my hair. I didn’t want it cut because I was a mod and I wanted my hair to remain the way I had it, in a bob. Thank god I let him do that cut because otherwise I wouldn’t be sitting here talking about it. That led to my test shots being seen, and the jobs rolled in.”
But it wasn’t just the haircut that defined Twiggy’s signature look – there were also her long, spidery eyelashes. “Those lashes and eyeliner were inspired by a rag doll in my bedroom,” she says. “My friend and I decided to copy and draw lines like that under our eyes. It was so over the top, but it stuck and became a permanent feature of the ’60s. Who would have thought?”
Despite her reluctance to look backwards, the 76-year-old is speaking to Sunday Life ahead of a new documentary about her life, simply titled Twiggy. Directed by British filmmaker Sadie Frost, it celebrates a remarkable career from her earliest jobs as a model right through to today, where we see her recording music and working on a podcast series, Tea with Twiggy.
Twiggy admits she had been approached to tell her life story numerous times before, but the moment never seemed right. But when she was asked by Frost some years ago, she says agreeing to it felt natural.
“I actually met Sadie at Stella McCartney’s house to celebrate one of Stella’s children’s birthdays,” recalls Twiggy. “Sadie and I have sort of lived parallel lives. She’s younger than me, of course, but she began to model at 15 and has also been in the public eye for most of her adult life. We naturally gravitated to one another.”
Twiggy in 1966, the year she was “discovered”.Credit: Getty Images
Frost, 60, started as a model before moving into acting (notably in Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula and, more recently, 2021’s A Bird Flew In). But it’s her foray into documentary-making that has attracted the most praise and attention. For the release of her 2021 film Quant, about 1960s British fashion designer Mary Quant, Frost roped in some of her celebrity mates to reflect on the fashion icon.
Having started to explore the UK fashion scene in the 1960s, it made sense that Frost’s next subject would be Twiggy. “Our friendship circles overlap as well,” says Twiggy. “I was best friends with Linda McCartney and have known Paul since I was 17 – we’re very close. When Sadie came on my podcast to talk about Quant, I asked what was next. And she said, ‘I should do one on you.’”
The resulting film covers Twiggy’s career as a model and subsequent move into acting, both on stage and in film, while also addressing the misogyny she faced. It’s a comprehensive record of the personal wins and losses that have shaped her life.
Once again, Frost brings in her celebrity mates. From Paul McCartney and Joanna Lumley (whose deadpan reflections on her own early modelling career warrant their own doco) to Brooke Shields and Kate Moss, their observations force Twiggy to not just look back on the decades that shaped her but to see herself as others saw her.
While leaving home at the age of 16 to start modelling might have been an unexpected dream come true, it also forced Twiggy to grow up quickly. She was initially managed by her boyfriend, Justin de Villeneuve, but the couple split in 1973. An age gap of 10 years didn’t help, nor did de Villeneuve’s controlling nature, as seen in the documentary.
Twiggy (left) with filmmaker Sadie Frost: “We naturally gravitated to one another.”Credit: Getty Images
While Twiggy helped bring mod into the mainstream, sexism was rampant in the era during which she blossomed. As hemlines crept up, so did the sleaze. We see and hear evidence of this not just in her first-hand experiences on photo shoots and TV appearances but in the previously unseen archival footage and photos that Frost has managed to dig up.
Within a few years, Twiggy had segued from modelling to acting via a performance in Ken Russell’s 1971 musical The Boy Friend that won her two Golden Globes. The film also showed she could sing – she was later nominated for a Tony for her turn in the Broadway musical My One and Only in 1983 – and she’s still recording music to this day.
She admits making the documentary wasn’t an easy process for someone who doesn’t like to romanticise the past. “Memories always bring tears but seeing my life on the screen really hit me. All those feelings came back, especially the story of my first husband [actor Michael Witney, whom she married in 1977 and who died of a heart attack in 1983] and the impact of that on my daughter [Carly, born in 1978].
“Sadie always said she wanted to portray a true picture of my career and my life. I didn’t want to do anything sensational or dig too deep, and I think she found a nice, happy medium. The response so far has been great.”
Twiggy also feels the documentary sheds light on some bigger themes, such as the class divide that existed in Britain when she started work. “Girls from my working-class background didn’t become models. My mum worked in a factory, and all the girls who became models were from the upper class and the middle class.
“I loved fashion magazines and had Jean Shrimpton all over my bedroom walls, but I would never have had the courage to go to an agency and look for work. In those days, they would have turned me away because I was too small and too thin.”
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Ultimately, Twiggy’s high-fashion career took off in the US first, helped by American fashion editor and columnist Diana Vreeland. Twiggy appeared on the cover of American Vogue, photographed by Bert Stern, in 1967, six months before the Brits followed suit, and wonders if her background might have held her back in Britain: “I think there was a little bit of snobbery there perhaps?”
She elaborates, “I was famous in London thanks to the newspapers, but Diana Vreeland was the one who put me on a glossy cover first. Diana was the one who brought me to New York, and she was the queen of fashion – an Anna Wintour before Anna was on the scene. She was powerful and made things happen.”
The documentary has also given Twiggy a chance to reflect on a remarkable career that might not have happened if the stars hadn’t aligned. “I guess I owe a lot to the ’60s for helping make me who I became,” she says. “I don’t think what I experienced would have happened a decade earlier. I appeared at the right time, at the right age, in the right city. I often think somebody up there was looking after me, because you couldn’t plan this if you tried.”
Twiggy is in cinemas December 4.
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