“I looked through my camera and this face looked back at me and I just just went ‘wow’. It was the effect of her looking back at me, I can’t find the adjective to describe it. I think it was the eyes, she had such presence. She was gawky but she had a sort of elegance.” Barry Lategan
Twiggy by Lewis Morley 1967
In August 1966 in the Pendennis Diary column in the British newspaper the Observer there was a small item about Twiggy the Neasden-born model who had just rocketed to fame:
There’s a power behind every throne. Justin de Villeneuve is the power behind Twiggy. Twiggy is the heir-apparent to Jean Shrimpton. And David Bailey is the power behind Jean Shrimpton – but we won’t go into that now.
Twiggy weighs 6½ stone and is just back from Paris, where she modelled the Cardin collection and posed for three covers of Elle. She’s off to New York in the spring, for £1,000 a week. Six months ago she was at school in Kilburn. She’s 16.
“I met her when she was 15,” said Mr de Villeneuve, a 27 year-old East Ender. “I saw the potential there. She’s very kookie, very twiggy. I’m sold on her.” He’d just turned down a film offer for Twiggy from Antonioni. “It wouldn’t have been right for her image. Twiggy’s like a little boy – she’s a teenage Garbo.”
Twiggy was wearing light orange boots, dark orange sailor-boy trousers, and a striped mauve and orange tee-shirt. (There certainly was a lot of orange.) She likes dogs, sewing, Batman and Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte, when the head fell down the stairs.
But Twiggy wasn’t saying very much: “I’m frightened I might say something wrong.” “Well, you say what you want to say, baby,” said Mr de Villeneuve. “Modelling’s better than school,” said Twiggy. “Isn’t she sweet?” said Mr de Villeneuve. “Isn’t she sweet?”
Twiggy sits cross-legged in an exotic tent constructed in Justin de Villeneuve’s home 1972 Justin de Villeneuve
1966, Barry Lategan
She was plain Lesley Hornby at the time, a thin and pretty 16-year-old shampoo girl from North West London who became the world’s first supermodel after her picture made it into the papers. In an interview in the Guardian the photographer Barry Lategan once remembered when Twiggy came into his Baker Street studio:
I looked through my camera and this face looked back at me and I turned round to Leonard [the hairdresser] and just went ‘wow’. It was the effect of her looking back at me, I can’t find the adjective to describe it. I think it was the eyes, she had such presence. She was gawky but she had a sort of elegance. Some people cower in front of the camera, but she became who she was.
One of Lategan’s photographs was seen by Daily Express journalist Deirdre McSharry and it appeared in the paper headlined The Face of 66.
The photographer can even claim a role in selecting the name that identified her for the rest of a career which took in acting, presenting and music as well as being an international icon.
Her boyfriend said ‘stop biting your nails, Twigs’ – short for Twiggy. I said ‘if you ever go professional you should call her that name’, so I suppose I’m partly responsible.
Doreen Spooner, 1966
King’s Road, London.June 1966 photo Stan Meagher
with Sonny and Cher (left) in Beverly Hills, 1967. Ralph Crane
Twiggy, Battersea Park, London; with the model riding on a moped;
photographed by Ronald Traeger (1937 – 68); printed by Tessa Traeger; published in British Vogue, July 1967
King’s Road, London.June 1966 photo Stan Meagher
1966, A facial portrait of model Twiggy wearing a fashionable and quirky white bonnet hat which has daisies attached and also wraps round her chin, whilst she smiling at the camera (Photo by Popperfoto/Getty Images)
1967
Sixties Fashion – A portrait of model Twiggy wearing a knitted yellow top and blue trousers in 1967. (Photo by Popperfoto/Getty Images)
Twiggy 1966 Paul Popper
Twiggy 1966 Paul Popper
1967 Paul Popper
Vogue, November 1967
Sara Crichton-Stuart and Twiggy, wearing navy blue dresses with bright yellow and orange accents by Daniel Hechter for Bagatel Vogue Oct 1966 photo Ronald Traeger
Paul Popper
New York City 1972
Twiggy On a photoshoot, London 1966 photo Burt Glinn
Twiggy earring by Trifari, hair by Ara Gallant, New York, April 3, 1967 by Richard Avedon
White Weddings British Vogue, February 1967 by Norman Parkinson
Twiggy 1967 by Ron Falloon
1967 by Ron Falloon
1966, by David Steen
1967 peeking through the curtains of the Paris shop Torrente.
1979, Harry Langdon
1972 by Justin de Villeneuve
Justin de Villeneuve
1970, Justin de Villeneuve
New York 1967 Photo Bert Stern
Bert Stern 1967
1966 by Barry Lategan
1967, Bert Stern
3rd March 1966
1967
October 1970
Vogue Jul 1967 Ronald Traeger
1967, Richard Avedon
1967
Ronald Traeger for Vogue, 1967
Vogue December 1974 Photo Barry Lategan
English model Twiggy wears a pair of shoes made for her by legendary British shoemaker George Cleverley, early 1970s. Cleverley exclusively produced shoes for men, but was persuaded to make an exception for Twiggy. (Photo by Justin de Villeneuve/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
1966. (Photo by Popperfoto/Getty Images)
with manager-boyfriend Justin de Villeneuve 1970
24th August 1968, with her partner Justin de Villeneuve
January 1967 at Bertram Mills Circus Olympia
vogue 1993 By Steven Meisel
Vogue, 1967 Photo Cecil Beaton
Photo Helmut Newton, VOGUE 1967
Twiggy with David Bowie 1973 Album Pin Up cover Photo Justin de Villeneuve
1966 Ronald Traeger
Richard Avedon, 1968
Bert Stern