Lesley “Twiggy” Lawson turns 75: From shy schoolgirl to supermodel

For a long time, Lesley Lawson, better known as Twiggy, was considered the mother of all supermodels. On September 19, 2024, she will turn 75 years old and will probably have to accept that she is now the grandmother of all supermodels. The world-famous Briton had not planned this – she owes her dazzling career to a cinematic coincidence.

Unexpected discovery in the hairdressing salon

This coincidence, which fundamentally turned her life upside down, occurred in January 1966 in the chic London district of Mayfair. According to legend, the then sixteen-year-old schoolgirl, called “Twigs” or “Twiggy” by her friends because of her thin legs, just wanted to have her long, dark blonde hair washed and styled in the hairdressing salon “The House of Leonard”.

When she entered the salon, the lanky teenager with the false eyelashes and doll-like eyes must have made an unusual impression – she had developed the irritating look shortly before for her Saturday nights out. No sooner had her hair been styled than the prominent owner of the salon, Leonard Lewis (1938-2016), approached her personally and asked if he could try out one of his new cuts on her.

As Lesley Lawson revealed a few years ago, she was not at all enthusiastic about the idea at first. “I was just growing my hair out and I really liked it. And for a moment I thought ‘Oh, I don’t know if I want it cut’. But I was so shy and I was standing in this very posh salon in Mayfair… So I didn’t dare say ‘I don’t want to do that’ and I just nodded.”

Birth of the Twiggy look

When she returned the next day, the star hairdresser gave her a radical makeover. In a seven-hour session, he first bleached her hair and then gave her the iconic pixie cut that would make her world famous just a short time later – something she obviously had no idea about when she left the salon.

Before that, Leonard Lewis had the freshly coiffed Lesley photographed by fashion photographer Barry Lategan (1935-2024) to promote his new short haircuts inspired by Vidal Sassoon (1928-2012). The restyled Twiggy then simply went back to school.

The face of the year 1966

The story could have ended here, had Deirdre McSharry, an influential fashion editor of the “Daily Express”, not noticed the Twiggy portrait on the wall a few days later when she visited the salon. She got the phone number of the completely unknown girl, organized another photo shoot and immediately made her a big star. On February 23, 1966, she published an enthusiastic article in the “Daily Express” with numerous photos of her youthful new discovery, in which she declared Twiggy the “Face of the Year 1966”.

After that, everything happened very quickly, as Lesley Lawson recalled in 2023: “One week I was still at school and within three months I was presenting Paris collections for magazines like ‘Elle’ and ‘Vogue’. It was really crazy. I was 16 – and a really green sixteen-year-old.” In addition, with a height of only 168 centimeters, a weight of 41 kilograms and her androgynous appearance, she contradicted all previous model norms.

“I was probably just in the right place at the right time,” reasoned the former supermodel. “Five years earlier, my career would have been unthinkable. But it was the Swinging Sixties, London was changing. Fashion was getting younger, and designers were looking for young, unusual models.” She never went on a diet to achieve her special look, she said, adding that it was down to “an extremely fast metabolism and very good genes.”

Twiggy becomes a world sensation

Within a very short time, Twiggy went from being a well-known British model to a global phenomenon. Diana Vreeland (1903-1989), the editor-in-chief of the American “Vogue” at the time, took her under her wing and paved the way for her with numerous fashion shoots and covers.

After a promotional tour in the USA in March 1967, she finally became a pop star and the most photographed face of the late 1960s, photographed by star photographers such as Richard Avedon (1923-2004), Cecil Beaton (1904-1980) and Helmut Newton (1920-2004). In the same year, Twiggy became the first doll in the Barbie family that Mattel designed after a living person, conquering not only the covers of all major fashion magazines, but also children’s bedrooms.

New start as an actress

After a four-year wave of success, Twiggy left the modeling business in 1970 just as suddenly as she had fallen into it. With the iconic statement “You can’t be a coat hanger all your life”, she ended her career as the world’s first supermodel and turned to new fields of activity. Among other things, she tried her hand at singing and acting with some success.

For her first leading role in Ken Russell’s musical comedy “The Boyfriend” (1971), she received two Golden Globes in 1972 as best comedy and newcomer actress. After that, she appeared as an actress in films and on the stage, including in the cult comedy “Blues Brothers” (1980) and with guest appearances in the US sitcom “The Nanny”. In 1983, she made her Broadway debut in the musical “My One and Only”.

In 2014, she said the following about her second career as an actress: “Modeling happened to me, I never applied for it. But acting is something I worked for. Looking back, that was the proudest moment of my career: when I was on stage in the play ‘My One and Only’ on Broadway in 1983, eight shows a week, for almost two years. I overcame my stage fright and my shyness for that. That was the high point.”

The Twiggy cult continues

Even on her 75th birthday, the cult surrounding Twiggy seems to be far from over. Quite the opposite: last year, the production “Close Up – The Twiggy Musical” was launched in London, in which the story of her meteoric career is brought to the stage with well-known songs from the Swinging Sixties. From October 18, 2024, a documentary film entitled “Twiggy” produced by her good friend Sadie Frost (59) will also conquer cinemas.

Lesley Lawson, who now leads a quiet life in London with her husband, actor and producer Leigh Lawson (79), and is now a grandmother of two, does not seem to have any major problems with aging. “I’m kind of proud of my wrinkles,” the former supermodel recently revealed. Plastic surgery or Botox are out of the question for her.