Twiggy on Her Iconic Haircut, David Bowie, and What King Charles Told Her at Buckingham Palace

Hi, Vogue, I m Twiggy,

and this is my Life in Looks.

[intriguing mellow orchestral music]

Ah. [laughs]

I do remember this.

This was taken by the wonderful Bert Stern

who, in the 50s and 60s,

I think he was one of the biggest fashion photographers.

And, actually, my first trip to New York,

he came on board to do a documentary of my trip.

And I think there s a series of me pulling faces like this,

kind of scrunching my nose up and going like that,

and this one with my mouth open.

It s kind of been around a long time.

But he was such a brilliant man, a lovely photographer.

That first year of modeling

after I was discovered in February 66,

was like a whirlwind.

I was a schoolgirl, and I was a mod.

I used to do makeup at weekends

and I devised that makeup and I became a model,

which was three pairs of eyelashes on top,

the drawn ones underneath,

which I got the idea from a ragdoll

that I had in my bedroom.

Somebody had a friend of a friend who worked on a magazine

and said, I think you should go and meet this woman,

cause I think you could maybe model.

So I met this woman.

I was quite upset really,

cause she said, You ll never really make a model,

cause you re too small and you re much too slim.

And so, I think I cried

on the way home on the bus. [chuckles]

But she said, I m gonna do some test shots of your face,

cause you ve got a very interesting face,

but your hair s a mess, cause I used to do it myself.

And she sent me to this hairdressers called Leonard,

which was a very posh salon in Mayfair, in London.

I was gonna just have my hair styled for the photographs,

and Leonard happened to be in that day,

and he saw me across the salon

and came over and said, Can I cut your hair?

And I went back the next day

and he did the now very well known haircut

that kind of launched me, really.

He hung the photograph

that Barry Lategan took of this haircut in his salon,

and big journalist of the day, Deirdre McSharry,

who worked for the Daily Express

said, I love the haircut.

Who s the girl?

I ve never seen her before.

And she said, I wanna meet her.

So I got a call at my home

saying would I go up for an interview?

And she said, I m gonna write an article about you.

And I already had the nickname Twiggy,

cause my legs were so skinny.

About three weeks later,

it was a big page in the Daily Express

saying Twiggy the Face of 66.

And, on that day in February,

my life changed forever. [chuckles]

Oh, it s another Bert.

This is April 15th, so that would be 1967.

I think this is my first ever American Vogue cover.

So it s my first Vogue cover,

because I worked for American Vogue

before I worked for British Vogue.

And that was because Diana Vreeland,

who was the fashion editor of American Vogue in those days,

and she was, like, the queen of fashion.

I mean, whatever Diana Vreeland said was it.

And she brought me over from the UK to America,

and really changed my life.

I always say that Diana Vreeland turned me global.

Oh! [laughs]

This is funny.

This, I was approached to do a line of clothing

by manufacturers.

And I think this is the little fashion show

that I did in the showroom,

because all the press photographers are there,

of my first collection of Twiggy dresses.

I loved doing that.

It was like a dream come true,

because, if what happened to me hadn t happened,

what I wanted to do, I wanted to go to art school

and I wanted to study fashion and design,

cause I wanted to be a fashion designer.

So, I got two wishes;

I got to be a model, and I got to work on a collection.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, this is interesting.

This is from a series of photographs

taken by another great photographer, Melvin Sokolsky.

And, on my first trip to New York in 67,

I was hired to do photographs of clothing range.

It was a fabric company,

and Melvin was taking the photographs,

and he wanted to do me all in different places in New York,

like at the zoo,

and this was with builders on a building site,

and coming outside of a department store,

and up the Empire State Building.

And the first day we went out, a crowd would gather,

because what had happened, I had arrived in New York,

it was my first trip to New York,

and I d come in after The Beatles,

I was part of the British invasion. [chuckles]

So people had seen me arriving at the airport,

cause there was a press conference and crowds of girls.

I mean, I was overwhelmed by it all.

I d gone in to do a fashion shoot,

and I had all this press coverage.

When we went out and Melvin was taking the pictures,

a crowd would gather,

and he would try and disperse them,

but they kept coming back.

So he had this idea,

he took me back to the studio

and took photos of my face in black-and-white,

which they made masks of, which you can see here.

So, wherever we were in New York, when a crowd gathers,

he just gave out the masks,

and the plan was to collect them back every day

and use them the next day,

but people wouldn t give them back,

they were keeping them as a souvenir.

And, actually, it won them,

I think, best advertising campaign of the year, I think.

It was an amazing time.

Ah!

I love this photograph, actually.

This was taken by Richard Avedon.

It is July, it says there,

so it must have been July, 1967

on that first big trip to New York.

They had the idea to paint this flower on my face,

it s beautiful actually,

and slick my hair back.

Over the years, a lot of people,

they ve done copies of this photograph,

with famous actresses, recreated it.

But it s a beautiful photograph.

Oh.

I remember this very well.

This is from my first movie called The Boy Friend,

in which I played the lead girl called Polly Browne,

and it was directed by Ken Russell.

There s a scene in it

where it s a song called Poor Little Pierrette.

So I ve got a pierrette and pierrot outfit on

with the little ballet slippers,

and the white clown face.

His wife, Shirley Russell did all the costume,

and she was absolutely brilliant.

She did all the costumes for all his films,

and she was amazing.

And all my clothes in The Boy Friend,

they re so beautiful,

because they re all like 1920s, 30s.

They re absolutely gorgeous.

I think I was like 18 and a half when we started filming.

It came out I think in 70 or 71,

and I won two Golden Globe Awards for it.

And it changed my life,

because, from then on,

I decided I didn t wanna model anymore,

I wanted to pursue this acting musical career, which I did.

Ah.

The Bowie Pin Ups photograph.

This is interesting, actually,

because I got a call from British Vogue

about doing a photograph with David Bowie.

This must have been probably early 70s.

You ve gotta remember that Bowie was enormous.

He was the biggest pop star

certainly in the UK and probably in the world,

and I was a huge, huge fan.

And a couple of years earlier,

I d been at home and on the radio,

you know, they were playing pop music,

and his new single came out

and it was called Drive-In Saturday,

and there s a line in it where he says

She d sigh like Twig the Wonder Kid,

and I was like, Oh my God.

David Bowie just said my name in a song.

I was like, Oh I was so...

Cause I loved him, I thought he was brilliant.

And then, a few months later, I got the call

saying would I d be up for doing a photograph

for the cover of Vogue with Bowie?

And I said, Absolutely, I d love it,

cause I d never met him.

He was, at the time, in Paris recording the Pin Ups album.

So I went to Paris and met him.

And, you know, he was just amazing man,

so bright, so clever, so modest,

just a really great guy,

apart from being incredibly talented.

And we got on really well.

We did the photograph, I went back to London,

and then the then editor said,

We can t put a man on the cover of British Vogue.

They wouldn t budge.

So while we were going back and forth with them,

David said, Why don t I just put it on the cover

of my album?

Which he did,

so it became the cover of Pin Ups,

and it s had a much longer life, actually,

because every time it s reissued in a different format,

out comes the cover of Pin Ups. [laughs]

Aw!

Aw, that s happy memories.

This is taken in the Big Biba store.

Now, Biba, for those who don t know,

I think most people in fashion do know,

Biba was the dream place to go and shop

in the mid 60s, late 60 s, into the early 70s.

Biba was the first place in London

that you could buy affordable clothes for young people.

And Biba was the inspiration

of a wonderful, wonderful lady

who was one of my dear, dear friends,

I love her so much, Barbara Hulanicki.

And Barbara brought Biba to London.

This is one of the photographs taken in the Big Biba,

cause it went from a tiny boutique to a mid-size boutique,

and then they took over a department store,

and it was one of the most beautiful department stores

in the world.

But I love this, cause it s my memory of Barbara.

Oh gosh!

In 1983, I was doing a big Broadway musical

called My One and Only with Tommy Tune.

This was the night of the Tony Awards,

and I had this dress made.

Actually, it s very high-cut.

I ve just... [laughs].

I just went to a dress maker, I did a drawing,

and I said, Can you make this?

And I had the points here that go over the finger.

So I love my hair.

I think I did that by braiding it the night before.

But it was a great night.

I mean, it s always a great night,

you know, it s the biggest night for theater in New York.

Oh.

This must be another pap shot.

This is the mid 90s Drama League Awards,

which I think are in New York.

But it s interesting

because my signature look has mostly been,

if I go back to look at the clothes that I love,

I love that boyish kind of look,

men s trouser suits.

You couldn t get men s suits for women in those days.

So I went to a tailor called Tommy Nutter in Savile Row.

He was one of my friends

and one of the great tailors of that era.

And he used to make me, you know, boy suits

with waistcoats and trousers and the jacket.

And this is a kind of,

I don t think this is a Tommy Nutter,

but it s that kind of look.

So I ve always loved that look.

Oh!

Well, this one s interesting.

So this is early 90s.

So, bear in mind that I kind of quit modeling

when I started doing The Boy Friend.

So, in 1970, I decided I wasn t gonna model anymore.

I wanted to pursue my performing career.

In the early 90s,

I got a call through my agent

from a wonderful photographer called Steven Meisel.

He wanted to do a 10-page spread with me for Italian Vogue.

I flew to New York, and we did this amazing spread.

But the funny thing

is that I got to the studio in New York ahead of him,

I was in makeup and hair,

and he came in to say hello.

I got up and said, Oh, it s so lovely to meet you,

I m a huge fan, and thank you for asking to do it.

And he said, We ve met before.

And I went, Oh my God, I m so...

I don t remember.

When did we meet? I don t remember.

He said, No, you wouldn t remember.

He said that I was 12. [laughs]

And what had happened,

when I first went to New York in 1967,

he was a 12-year-old boy, he lived in New Jersey,

and he d seen on the TV that I d arrived in New York.

He and his friend decided they wanted to come and meet me.

So they took the day off school,

they got the ferry over from New Jersey to New York,

they found where Melvin Sokolsky studio was,

they rang the doorbell.

And at the time,

I was being filmed for the Bert Stern documentary.

And somebody answered the door

and they said, We wanna meet Twiggy,

and the person said, No, you can t, go away.

And the director of the documentary said,

No, no, bring them up.

It d be good footage.

So these two young boys came out,

I came out.

Now, I don t remember this, and I told Steven that.

He said, You came out of the dressing room,

and I said, Oh, I hope I was nice to you,

and he said, No, you were lovely.

And I signed pictures for them, and we chatted,

and they went away really happy, apparently.

And, apparently, he said to his friend

on the ferry back to New Jersey,

he said, One day, I m gonna photograph her,

cause he d always wanted to be a photographer.

So it took from 1967 to 1992, or whatever it was,

for him to photograph me,

but I just thought it was such a sweet story.

Aw, me and Kate.

This is by Solve Sundsbo,

I hope I ve pronounced that properly,

he s a Scandinavian photographer, wonderful photographer.

And we were doing a shoot for i-D Magazine,

and they were photographing all different models

from different eras.

And the day I was booked to go in,

Kate Moss was in.

So she was in in the morning and we overlapped,

I went into makeup and Kate was having her photograph taken.

And then Solve came to me and said,

As you re both here today,

it would be lovely to get a picture of you together.

What do you think?

And I said, Well, I d love it, I m game for it.

And he asked Kate, and she said,

Oh, yeah, that d be great.

I love the way she s leaning on me, it s brilliant.

I love Kate, she s so lovely.

And it s interesting,

because we re both kind of the same height,

I mean, she s obviously much younger than me.

But, you know, when I hit in the 60s,

I wouldn t have been taken by a model agency,

cause I was too small and too thin.

When what happened to me happened,

it changed the criteria

of what agencies would take girls on for.

And Kate came along two decades later,

and was very similar size and shape to me, when I began.

And, you know, she s one of the great models,

and one of the nicest girls in the world.

I love her.

Oh, I remember this day.

I won t forget this day,

as long as I live, I don t think.

I m in a beautiful Stella McCartney suit that she made me

and a hat,

that, funny enough, the little hat,

cause this is at the Palace, when I got my Damehood.

The hat, I went shopping

with my daughter and my granddaughter,

and my granddaughter picked this hat.

I think she was about...

Oh, she was quite little, about four or five.

You re meant to wear a hat at the Palace, so...

I ll never forget the day.

They don t let you know that you re gonna be offered one.

And I remember the day the letter came,

a few months before the ceremony.

And it s a very official letter.

[chuckles] I think my first thought was,

Oh my God, is it a tax letter, you know?

Not that it should be, cause I pay my taxes.

It was just like, Oh, what s this?

It s very official.

And when I opened it,

it s all in very kind of legalese language.

I thought it was saying that I d got a CBE,

which, you know, I was thrilled about,

I just couldn t believe it.

At the bottom of the letter it said,

If you ring this number,

there d be somebody you can talk to and ask question.

So I rang this nice lady

and I said, you know, It s Twiggy here,

I ve just got my letter.

Am I right in understanding it s a CBE

that I m being offered by the Palace?

And she said, No, no, it s a Damehood.

I went, Oh my goodness. [laughs]

She said, I think you better sit down

and make yourself a nice gin and tea. [laughs]

I mean, I don t like gin, actually,

but it was given to me by the then Prince Charles,

and now King Charles.

When he pinned it on my jacket,

he said, It s about time you got this,

which I thought was very sweet.

Aw!

This is the first poster for our film Twiggy,

which is a documentary directed by Sadie Frost on my life.

It s just been released nationwide.

It happened because Sadie Frost,

who s a wonderful actress,

and she s been a model and various things,

and about three years ago,

she did a beautiful documentary on Mary Quant,

and I do a podcast called Tea with Twiggy,

and her people asked

if she could come on to promote Quant.

So I said, Brilliant.

She came on the podcast, got on really well,

and I said to her,

Are you gonna do any other documentaries?

And she said, I d love to do another one.

And she said, I loved doing Mary Quant,

because I love doing all the stuff from the 60s,

and getting all the archives,

and it s such a great period.

So I d like to find somebody

that worked within the 60s era.

And then she said, Oh, I should do you. [chuckles]

So I kind of said, Oh, okay.

Well, let s talk about it off camera.

So, the following week, we went out to lunch.

And it s worked out brilliantly,

and we had the premier a couple of weeks ago,

and it s gone down a storm.

So I m really happy for Sadie, I m happy for me,

and it s been a very happy experience.

And I love that photo.

Again, that s an old photograph, but it s a nice poster.

Most people have a photo album of their lives,

but to actually [chuckles] see your life unfold

in front of you on a big screen,

it s very emotional.

You know, it s interesting looking at these photographs,

because I ve done lots and lots of different things,

I still continue to do lots of different things,

and I think that s what s kept me

kind of interested in my career,

because I didn t stick to just modeling.

But it was because I met people

who gave me the chance to do other things.

I think I was so young when I was discovered

that I was kind of thrown into that spotlight.

I ve had an amazing life, amazing career,

I m not moaning about it. [laughs]

This is Twiggy, and this has been my Life in Looks,

and it s been amazing to look back.

Very, very happy memories.

[intriguing mellow orchestral music]