TWIGGY: “I was a mod even before I became a model. You were either a mod or a rocker. The rockers rode motorbikes, wore leather gear, and the girls wore leather trousers, leather jackets. And the mods, we all dressed alike. This was before the mini. This was the early ’60s. We used to wear pleated skirts and hushpuppy shoes-flat, lace-up, suede shoes-nylon macs, and little grey jumpers. And the hair, which is what I had, was center parting, straight, and long.
So that was the real mods and rockers, and then it segued into the mid ’60s, which was when my look happened.
By the end of the ’60s, the mods and rockers kind of peaked. Then it became mod fashion, which was different”.
Young Leslie Hornsby was teased as a child about being skinny – thin as a twig, they said. Thus the name, Twiggy. Dubbed “The Face of 1966” Twiggy dominated fashion photography. She was on the cover of every major fashion and teen magazine. Her boyish look was the one to emulate.
A model for a scant four years, she had never even walked the runways by the time she exploded onto the scene. Educated at the Kilburn High School for Girls, her look and image was an instant globular sensation. She was even imitated by Mattel when they issued a “Twiggy Barbie” in 1967 and by Milton Bradley who created a board game out of her. Lunch boxes, false eye lashes, tights, sweaters, tote bags and paper dolls — all these bore her famous moniker. In her prime she graced the covers of Vogue and Tatler, and even had her own American publication “Her Mod, Mod Teen World.”
