UK Supermodel Twiggy Reflects On Ageing, Injectables & 60 Years In the Spotlight
One of the original supermodels, Twiggy’s illustrious career is immortalised on-screen in director Sadie Frost’s documentary. Twiggy speaks to Viva about her new film, the defining moments of the past 60 years, and how she’s not planning on slowing down anytime soon.
With her doe-eyed gaze, elfin features and strikingly dark eyelashes, 16-year-old Lesley Hornby stepped into the Mayfair salon of celebrity hairstylist Leonard Lewis and walked out as Twiggy, her newly golden blonde hair chopped into a razor-sharp pixie cut.
Her androgynous look challenged conventional beauty norms, which led to Daily Express fashion editor Deidre McSharry boldly declaring Twiggy as “The Face Of ’66″ – a title which transformed the London teen to a global fashion icon.
Millennials might remember Twiggy’s stint as a judge on America’s Next Top Model for four cycles from 2005 to 2007. She hasn’t seen the controversial Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model documentary, which questioned the ethics of the show, treatment of contestants and host Tyra Banks’ responsibility for the problems, but says she always got on “really well” with model and host Tyra Banks.
“I had very little to do with the part where the girls were in the house. I’d just turn up for judging and they’d come into the studio. I was kind of removed from it, really,” she says.
“It was a nice job. I did say to Tyra up front that I didn’t want to be the bad guy, because I’ve been one of those young girls. My heart went out to them, really. I said to her ‘If you want a bad guy, you’ve got to find somebody else’.”
Now 76, Twiggy reflects on the past 60 years she’s spent in the spotlight in a new documentary by director Sadie Frost.
Despite being offered to do documentaries “a few times over the last 20 years”, Twiggy says she didn’t feel simpatico with any of the directors. That was until Frost’s producers asked Twiggy if she’d feature the director on her podcast, to discuss the documentary she’d done on Mary Quant.
The pair joked on the episode that Frost should do Twiggy’s life next, and over lunch a week later, the deal was done.
“It’s quite a big decision to have your life told on a big screen. The first time I saw it, I cried through most of it. Sadie did a brilliant job. She and her team found things I’d never seen before. I’ve got endless photographs but to see my daughter as a little girl and my mum and dad, who aren’t here anymore, was very emotional,” Twiggy says.
Three years in the making, the well-paced telling of Twiggy’s many watershed moments are explored through a mix of archival footage and in-person interviews with magazine editors, modelling icons Pattie Boyd, Joanna Lumley, Brooke Shields and Kate Moss, alongside actors Sienna Miller and Dustin Hoffman.
“She changed the face of fashion,” fashion editor and author Suzy Menkes says in the film, because “she smiled. She smiled a lot.”
She was born Lesley Hornby in Neasden, northwest London, in 1949, the youngest of three daughters to parents William and Nellie. At age 13, enamoured by British youth subculture, Twiggy became a mod – a term emblematic at the time of anything trendy or fashionable. By age 16, Twiggy left school with her dad’s blessing and her career took flight.
“My dad was very worried that this would only last a couple of months,” Twiggy says.
“But wisely, he said, ‘If I don’t give you this chance now, we’ll never know and you might end up being angry at me’. It was a wise decision for a dad to make, and the only stipulation he made was that I had to have a chaperone [her then boyfriend Justin de Villeneuve] with me. He was an old-fashioned dad, very sensible and kind, and really loved me.”
Of all the influences in her early life, Twiggy holds McSharry in high regard, even travelling to Bath with a bunch of flowers to thank her after the film premiered in the UK last year.
“She was the one who was brave. I wasn’t trying to be somebody else. That’s just what I looked like,” Twiggy says of the moniker McSharry gave her 60 years ago.
“I had people I looked up to, like Jean Shrimpton, but I didn’t look anything like her. My look was very much mine – especially since I was a mod and was very into making my own clothes.”
A multi-hyphenate long before the term itself was coined, it was never written in the stars for the “Cockney kid” to model, act, sing or dance.
Looking back, she says what’s wonderful is the chance she was given by all the people who believed in her.
“Deidre McSharry changed my life completely, as did Leonard, who cut my hair. I had no plans to be an actress, singer or dance and then I became friends with [The Boyfriend director] Ken Russell. He opened up this world for me that I never had any ambition to do, but in a way it was nicer because everything was a wonderful surprise,” she says.
Her performance in The Boyfriend earned her two Golden Globes (they still sit proudly on her mantelpiece). Then came her own TV show. A recording deal and a concert at the Royal Albert Hall. A Christmas special where she sang live with Bing Crosby. Clothing collections for Marks & Spencer. An 18-month run of My One And Only with Tommy Tune on Broadway. And much, much more.
Reflecting on the many strings to her bow, including being appointed as a Dame Commander in 2019, Twiggy says: “Everything has been a fantastic experience.” The self-proclaimed optimist looks fondly at her life and says she’s been “very blessed” to have been on this journey.
Despite her many achievements, Twiggy’s family life has always taken precedence over her work. Her preference these days is to pick and choose only projects she feels passionate about.
She met her now-husband, actor Leigh Lawson, at a dinner with friends in 1984 and says she fell “madly in love”.
“He was gorgeous physically, and also really sweet and lovely,” Twiggy says. They’ve been together 38 years.
Today, Twiggy is a proud grandmother to five grandchildren (two from her daughter, Carly, and three from stepson, Jason).
Twiggy counts the collection she designed with Marks & Spencer as a career highlight, a curated edit of tailored pieces that felt true to her own personal style, including a selection of brogues in different colours that she still wears to this day.
Not one to wear frilly dresses, Twiggy says she leans into structured silhouettes – waistcoats, trousers and brogues are on heavy rotation in her wardrobe.
For most of her red carpet appearances, she dons a “beautiful tailored suit”, but says she feels equally as comfortable dressed down at home – Covid’s ripple effect in action.
“We all got so used to dressing very comfortable in trackpants and sneakers, that has rubbed off. In [the UK], certainly. I don’t know many of my friends who have gone back into wearing high heels,” she says.
Twiggy hints that another collection is in the works, saying she’s in talks with people now (but won’t specify who).
“I love that part of my life. I love designing, I love fabric, I love to make clothes. At the moment, I mostly make them for my grandchildren,” she says.
The clothes she designs for brands are based on what she herself would wear.
“I used to say to my team, ‘I’m not going to do a pale lemon dress with roses on it. That’s not me. Somebody else can do that’,” she says, adding that the pieces she loves to design transcend age and trend.
“The nice thing is that women over a certain age still dress brilliantly. In my mum’s day, when you got past 50, you wore old lady clothes. That doesn’t happen anymore. I’m happy to say I know so many really stylish older women.”
In fashion and beauty, Twiggy is quick to point out how the mainstream are obsessed with attracting the younger market, but says: “There’s a whole market out there they’re missing out on.”
She jokes it always makes her laugh to see an anti-ageing skincare brand use an 18-year-old model to sell its product, adding she didn’t wear foundation until she was in her 40s.
“When you’re young, the skin is beautiful. It’s there to be celebrated.”
Twiggy has famously said she’d never try Botox or injectables, either.
“The thought of injecting something in my face is terrifying. I’m quite proud of my wrinkles. I’ve lived, I’ve earned them,” she says.
These days, her self-care rituals adopt a much slower pace. She never goes to sleep with makeup on, eats healthy and does Pilates once a week.
“I don’t do anything specific, I keep my body and my face clean. Not going to sleep with makeup on is my number one rule. Apart from messing up the sheets, I don’t think it’s very good for your skin,” she says.
She fosters her love of cooking by creating healthy meals, but says she’s not fanatical about her diet, either.
A former gym bunny, Twiggy turned her attention to Pilates 12 years ago after a chiropractor suggested building up her core strength might help with a lower-back problem.
“I wish I started it 40 years ago. To anyone out there, you should do Pilates. It’s wonderful, I love the peace of it – you go into a meditative state for an hour but it’s also really good for your body,” she says.
Even in her mid 70s, Twiggy quips that sitting at home retired wouldn’t suit her at all. Instead, she’s reignited her love of music (her last album was released in 2011) by recording four new tracks with songwriter Amy Wadge, who she connected with after hearing her work on the TV show Keeping Faith.
“She’s brilliant, I love her. I’m obsessed with her music,” Twiggy says, adding they plan to get back into Wadge’s home studio after the UK summer. She hopes to release an EP with Wadge, or do “a few fun little gigs and things”.
“It’s been lovely for me. I haven’t been in the studio for ages and it’s lovely working on new projects. It gives you that excitement, that boost of something new.”
On spending the past six decades being a master of reinvention, Twiggy says: “You have to do that today. You can’t just sit in your own little puddle and think ‘Oh this is nice’.
“I don’t like analysing my life but I think the fact that I did go on to do lots of different things has helped my longevity,” she says, signing off with a cheery: “Give my love to New Zealand.”
Twiggy is screening on Rialto Channel on selected dates, starting from May 7.
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