Fashion icon Twiggy: 'David Bowie singing my name was the thrill of my life'

Lesley Lawson (nee Hornby), known as Twiggy, was born in London in September 1949. After being spotted at 16 she rapidly became a internationally recognised model, with her mod look defining the 60s. After a string of magazine covers, including US Vogue, her name was marketed as a brand in connection with a string of products including a Twiggy doll.

She went on to star in films, including Ken Russell’s 1971 hit The Boyfriend, for which she won two Golden Globes. She also pursued a musical career – 1976’s Here I Go Again was her biggest single, reaching No 17 in the UK. Over the years she has become a familiar face on TV screens, with appearance on The Muppet Show, Absolutely Fabulous and America’s Next Top Model.

Speaking to Big Issue for her Letter to My Younger Self, she looks back on her sudden rise to fame, the consequences of her high profile and how lucky she considers she’s been.

When I turned 16, I was living at home with my mum and dad in Neasden, north-west London. We lived in a happy suburban home, my sisters had moved out by then, so it was mum, dad and me. I was one of those weirdos who loved school. I’d passed my 11+ and gone to grammar school and was very happy.

My dad was the constant in my life. He was a good, solid, northern man from Bolton – very sensible and loving. He was like my soulmate. My mum had mental health issues, but as a little girl, I always felt very protected. My sister Shirley was 15 years older than me, so she was like a second mum anyway. Mum could be fine for a long time, then she’d have a dip and go to hospital.

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I was always obsessed with clothes. I was a mod, of course. And clothes were important for us. It was like a uniform, but you couldn’t buy a lot of the stuff because in those days, department stores only sold grown-up clothes or children’s clothes. There wasn’t that teenage market until Biba and Quant – and I couldn’t afford a lot of it. So I used to make my clothes. The plan was to do fashion and design at art school. It’s my passion, I still sew. I’m in the middle of making something at home now. 

I wasn’t allowed make-up at school. So, like most teenage girls, I would play with it at weekends. I had a rag doll with these painted lashes under her eyes – so that’s where my famous look came from. Every Saturday I went to this mod club in Harrow on the Hill above Burtons tailoring. We saw all the bands before they were big – The Yardbirds, Eric Burdon and The Animals, Georgie Fame. But I always had to be home by 10.30pm, quite rightly. And I was good!

I had a Saturday job in a hairdressing salon where my sister Vivian worked. I got the nickname Twiggy from a guy downstairs at the men’s salon. He used to tease me because I was so skinny. It used to annoy me. His brother was Justin [De Villeneuve, Twiggy’s future manager and partner], who had a friend working on a magazine. I loved models and had posters of Jean Shrimpton all over my walls. She was my idol, the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen. 

I had a secret dream of modelling, but models were middle or upper class. The woman on the magazine told me I was too small and skinny – you had to be 5’8” and have minimum measurements. That secret dream seemed to be over. But she said I had an interesting little face and sent me to [celebrity hairdresser] Leonard of Mayfair. Leonard asked if he could do his new hairstyle on me. I was in this posh salon – when I got to know Leonard, I realised he was as working class as me, but his persona was posh – and was too nervous to say no. Then he sent me to Barry Lategan to take my picture and the rest is history.

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When I look at those pictures, they make me laugh. I was a funny little thing. Models were always very austere before that, but I look like I was really enjoying myself. Because I was. The famous picture in the Fair Isle sweater is from that first session. I went back to school after two days in Mayfair and that should have been it, but one of Leonard’s clients was Deirdre McSharry from the Daily Express. She saw the picture of me in the window, asked to meet me, and a few weeks later I was in the paper as the face of ’66. 

None of my life should have happened like this. It has been all these coincidences. I didn’t stop to think about what was happening. Doors open, opportunities happen, so I went along with it. And it was fabulous.

Times were changing. Working-class people were doing well – in acting, in music, and there were other young models coming up. I just happened to be the one that clicked on that scale. It was a time where working-class people were breaking down barriers.

Steve McQueen asked me to dance and I said no. The photographer Bert Stern was doing a documentary on me. I’d worked with him for American Vogue – I was so lucky to work with these amazing photographers when I was a kid. I was flying out to do another shoot for Vogue and he followed me on that trip. We went to LA and Sonny and Cher threw me a party. It was so bizarre. Steve McQueen was a major film star, but I was too shy to dance with him. I’d tell my younger self to just enjoy it. But actually, I think I did.

When you’re given a chance to do something, even if you are frightened, just do it. That’s what it felt like when Ken [Russell, director] asked me to be in his film of The Boyfriend. I was doing well as a model but had no aspirations to act until I met Ken. I’d sung in the school choir and knew I could hold a tune. But that was it. It took a year for him to persuade MGM to cast me – which I understand, I was a very, very famous model but hadn’t done any film work. Ken made it happen. There are certain people I really owe. Leonard, Barry, Deirdre, then Ken and [The Boyfriend co-star] Tommy Tune. They gave me chances I would never have had, and all of them completely changed my life.

How could you not be into The Beatles? I was a teenager in the 1960s! I went for dinner with Ken when he was the biggest director in the country and I was this shy girl and found myself sat with my favourite Beatle. Six months earlier, I’d been arguing with my friends about our favourite Beatle. And mine was always Paul. So how was I supposed to be composed when I met him? But we’ve been friends ever since.

It was the thrill of my life when David Bowie sang my name in a song. I loved David Bowie, but I’d never met him – then I heard him singing my name in “Drive-In Saturday” [from Aladdin Sane, 1973]. So I rushed to the record shop but didn’t know the name of the song, so I started singing it. I only met Bowie when we did that photo shoot in Paris. I was nervous but he was so sweet – very bright, very cool, very well read. The editor of Vogue, in his wisdom, said they couldn’t put a man on the cover, so David put us on the cover of his album Pin Ups. It’s such a lovely picture. The Beatles changed the world and changed music. But David changed music as well. We lost him too soon.

Follow your heart – but try to be a bit wise. That’s what I’d tell my younger self. And I got really lucky with my husband Leigh [Lawson]. I’d been through a lot. I had loved Michael [Witney, Twiggy’s first husband] a lot, but he had a terrible problem with alcoholism and it killed him. I didn’t want to go through that again and I had my daughter, so I was very cautious. But so was Leigh. He had a son and had split from his lady two years earlier, I’d been widowed a year and a half. We’ll have been together 40 years this summer and married 37.

When you’ve got a child, you become superhuman. You read amazing stories of women lifting up huge things to save their child and you can also do that emotionally. Going through everything with Michael was the toughest time of my life, but I had my daughter, Carly, who is one of the loves of my life. And you become superhuman to protect that child.

If I could relive one day… actually, can I have two? The first day I held Carly in my arms – I’m sure it’s the same for every mother, you change in an instant. The other would be the first dinner I had with Leigh. We’d met 10 years earlier after a John Denver concert, I was with Michael, he was with his lady. Ten years later, I was widowed, he was on his own and I was going for dinner in Chelsea with Robert Powell (we’d done Pygmalian together, one of the best things I’ve done as an actress) and his wife, Babs. Leigh wasn’t even supposed to be there. Fate has played such a big part in my life! They’d invited another couple who’d had a big row, so Bob rang a friend, who happened to be going for a drink with Leigh. You know how actors are, it’s like a club, so Bob said bring him along! Somebody was watching over us. Because in walked Leigh and the rest is history…

Twiggy, a new documentary directed by Sadie Frost, is in cinemas now.

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