EXCLUSIVE: Twiggy on why she’ll never retire and being a style icon at 75

She was the original supermodel, and nearly six decades after finding overnight fame at the age of 16, Twiggy remains one of most famous fashion icons in the world. A catalyst for a cultural revolution, she is still lauded as a style inspiration.

When we meet the global phenomenon at our exclusive HELLO! photoshoot, she effortlessly slips into a series of perfect poses, commanding the room. 

Dressed in her favourite signature style – a sharply tailored trouser suit – as well as an array of outfits by designers including Dior, Ralph Lauren and Richard Quinn, she exudes an aura of self-assured confidence, demonstrating her prolific experience in front of the camera.

“I used to go to a wonderful tailor called Tommy Nutter in the ’60s, who made me ‘boy’ suits,” Twiggy, who was one of the first women to order her outfits from Savile Row, and has also been the face of high-street retailer Marks & Spencer, tells us, deftly lifting her jacket collar. “I’ve got suits in every shape and colour. When I designed my range for Marks & Spencer I did lots of beautiful tailoring.”

Joining her for the shoot is her daughter Carly and the close bond between them is palpable. 

And when the north London-born icon, who was made a Dame for services to fashion, the arts and charity in 2019, is asked what luxuries in life she enjoys most, she doesn’t hesitate when she cites ‘just hanging out’ with her grandchildren Joni, nine, and Theo, five – Carly’s children with husband Ben Wiggins. 

“The two little ones are the joys of my life,” the 75-year-old model, mother and grandmother tells us in this exclusive interview. “One of my favourite things to do is pick the kids up from school. I love it when they all come out, because it takes me back to when Carly was little.”

Mother-Daughter Time

She and Carly laugh together constantly as they pose for our shoot. And as they look through the array of clothes selected for them, Carly points out an outfit she thinks would be perfect for her mother. In fact her daughter is ‘probably my best friend,’ Twiggy tells us. “Last week we were in Dublin for two days [for promotional work] and Carly came with me. We shared a wonderful suite and went to the spa on our time off – it was really nice to just be together.”

“We have a really lovely relationship and are very close,” print designer and illustrator Carly, 46 – who at one point smooths down Twiggy’s hair before the photographer captures a shot – tells us. “I love her very much. She’s a really wonderful grandmother and the children absolutely adore her.

“After everything she’s gone through, she’s so down to earth. She’s so grateful for things and she’s very unaffected by her fame, which is a rare thing in that industry. She’s very loving and patient and I’ve learned a lot from her.”

When asked what she likes best about being ‘Mimi’ – the nickname for grandmother she has been given by her family – to Joni and Theo, she laughs: “Where do I start? Have you got three hours? I knew when Carly was pregnant that whoever came out we would love but I didn’t realise the depth of that feeling, it’s unbelievable. Joni really makes me laugh, and she bosses me around – nobody bosses me around but she does when we are playing.”

Mother and daughter have always had a strong bond, made even tighter after Twiggy’s first husband – Carly’s father – Michael Witney died of a heart attack after collapsing while out celebrating his daughter’s birthday when she was just five. “She was always with me wherever I went in the world because after her dad died, which was obviously a horrible part of our lives, I became very protective of her,” she says.

Girl On Film

Now, Carly is one of the many people, including Stella McCartney and Dustin Hoffman, both long-time family friends, who take part in Twiggy, a documentary about her life directed by filmmaker and actor Sadie Frost. 

“The first time I saw it, I felt very peculiar,” Twiggy tells us. “To see video of my mum and dad who are not here anymore, and Carly as a little one… it stirs up all the emotions.”

The film also covers her overnight fame after she was discovered as a model when she was just 16 and her foray into acting, making her debut in Ken Russell’s The Boy Friend in 1971, for which she won two Golden Globes. “I never planned that to happen. I was as shocked as everyone else,” says Twiggy who also starred in Club Paradise with Robin Williams and Madame Sousatzka with Shirley Maclaine, meeting Fred Astaire, Noel Coward and David Bowie along the way.

The documentary, released this week, came about after Sadie was a guest on her podcast, Tea with Twiggy, in 2021. Sadie had just directed a film about Mary Quant and, during the interview, she was asked who her next subject should be. 

The answer was sitting right in front of her. “We went out to lunch the next week,” Twiggy recalls. “We got on really well and I loved it that we had kind of parallel lives. She started really young as a model, she acted, she’s done a fashion collection… I thought she would understand what it’s like being in the public eye from such a young age.”

The process brought back many memories, with Sadie even unearthing a few clips Twiggy had never seen before, including a video of her rollerskating in Paris. 

It also includes infamous footage of a patronising Woody Allen interviewing a then-17-year-old model and trying to catch her out when he asks her about her favourite philosophers. 

“It was a different time. I think I was very lucky because my dear old dad gave me permission to leave school to do modelling. But he said: ‘I’ll only let you do it if you are always chaperoned by either your mum or [then-boyfriend] Justin de Villeneuve, who was my manager, or him. So I always had somebody with me.”

Carly says watching these scenes only made her prouder of her mother. “I think she handled it all so well. And then as she got older, she was brave enough to do all the things she did, like The Boy Friend; she had never sung and danced before. All the things she’s done are extraordinary.”

“Sadie has done such a brilliant job,” she continues. “But Mum was so young – in some of the footage, I can see that she’s a child, essentially – and I felt so proud of her. What she went through was quite extraordinary.”

Joni, she says, is “becoming more aware of what her grandmother has done. I explain everything, and I show her things. She knows that she has a very cool grandmother who has a really awesome job.”

Indeed, after Carly briefly leaves the shoot to do the school run before returning with the children, Joni and Theo couldn’t be more excited to join their beloved ‘Mimi’ in the studio, watching in awe as she strikes another cool pose. 

Still Cool

Clearly Twiggy has lost none of her cool charisma she first demonstrated as a gazelle-like teenager.

Born Lesley Hornby, her life changed overnight when a photo of her at 16 – taken after she’d had her hair bobbed and dyed blonde – was noticed by an astute fashion editor who tracked her down and wrote a piece, calling her The Face of ’66, that launched her modelling career. Overnight, she transformed into Twiggy – the nickname she earned due to her slim figure.  

Since then Twiggy has thrived in a multi-faceted career which has also included her work with Marks & Spencer. The age-defying star credits her youthful appearance to walking ‘a lot’ and doing Pilates once a week. While she hasn’t kept much of her wardrobe from her early modelling days, she does cherish a two-tone green full-length velvet coat made for her by the late Ossie Clark and a faux leopard coat, again created just for her, that Barbara Hulanicki, a close friend who founded fashion label Biba, made with ‘those wonderful shoulders’. 

She and husband Leigh Lawson will have been together for 40 years this July, having tied the knot in 1988. The secret to their happy marriage is, she says, that they get on ‘really well’ and had made a pact early on that only one of them at a time would take on jobs away from home. “We are a good support for each other,” she says of Leigh, an actor, director and writer who has just published his first book of poems, Now and Then.

Twiggy has recently started recording an album with British singer-songwriter Amy Wadge after inviting her on to her podcast. “I love recording, and working with Amy is a joy,” she says.

But while she has some upcoming projects which she is not yet permitted to discuss, she would love to work with Carly who worked for several years as the print designer for Stella McCartney – again, having already collaborated together for Marks & Spencer. And whatever Twiggy does, she remains grateful for her experiences. “All the things I’ve done in my career weren’t planned and I was as shocked as everyone else, when that happened to me in 1966. I’ve never really thought about age and I probably won’t retire. I pick and choose what I do – but I get invigorated by doing new things.”

Twiggy is at UK cinemas now.

To read the full exclusive interview, pick up the latest issue of HELLO! on sale in the UK on Monday. You can subscribe to HELLO! to get the magazine delivered free to your door every week or purchase the digital edition online via our Apple or Google apps.