Legendary Model Twiggy Breaks Down 14 Looks, From 1967 to Now | Life in Looks | Vogue

“I got the idea from a rag doll I had in my bedroom!” Legendary model Twiggy takes us on an unforgettable journey through her Life in Looks. The once-overlooked, “too small” and “too thin” superstar reflects on becoming the ultimate “It girl” of the ‘60s mod scene, winning Golden Globes after her transition to acting, and shooting the Pin Ups album cover with David Bowie. Twiggy also reminisces about the glory days of the chic ‘70s department store Biba, the rise of Kate Moss, being featured—twice—in the National Portrait Gallery, and the new documentary chronicling her extraordinary life.

Director: Emily McDonald
Director Of Photography: Henry Gill
Editor: Lika Kumoi
Producer: Rashida Josiah
Creative Production Coordinator: Anisa Kennar
Production Coordinator: Ericka Gourgues-Lutran
Camera Operator: Laura Aguilera
Assistant Camera: Gordon Wong
Gaffer: Maria Kalecinska
Spark: Dylan Schultz-Soo
Audio: Jermaine Monero
Runner: Luke Demetri
Production Coordinators: Ava Kashar, Tania Jones, Ericka Gourgues-Lutran
Production Manager: David Alvarez Paz
Senior Production Manager: Alexandra Dawson Herren
Line Producer: Natasha Soto-Albors
Senior Director, Production Management: Jessica Schier
Assistant Editor: Andy Morell
Post Production Coordinator: Holly Frew
Supervising Editor: Kameron Key
Post Production Supervisor: Alexa Deutsch
Director, Post Production: Nicholas Ascanio
Associate Talent Manager: Phoebe Dishner
Director, Content Production: Rahel Gebreyes
Senior Director, Digital Video: Romy van den Broeke
Senior Director, Programming : Linda Gittleson
VP, Video Programming: Thespena Guatieri
Filmed on Location: The Langham
Florist: Blooming Haus

00:00 – Twiggy’s Life in Looks
00:12 – 1967 – Twiggy in Hollywood
02:34 – 1967 – Vogue US
03:03 – 1967 – Twiggy dresses
03:42 – 1967 – Photographed by Melvin Sokolsky
05:18 – 1967 – Vogue US Photographed by Avedon
05:49 – 1971 – “Polly Browne”
06:45 – 1973 – Pin Ups album cover with David Bowie
08:31 – 1973 – Vogue December issue
09:26 – 1983 – Tony Awards
09:57 – 1995 – Drama League Awards
10:43 – 1993 – Vogue Italia
13:04 – 2006 – i-D Magazine
14:27 – 2019 – Buckingham Palace
16:03 – 2024 – Twiggy film poster

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– 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]