Daily Express, Thursday April 29th, 2004
Twiggy Branches Out
by Mernie Gilmore
IT'S EASY to be cynical when a celebrity launches a new skincare range. Often it's because a famous face has agreed to her name being slapped on the products in exchange for a fat fee rather than having any real interest in what's being sold. Twiggy has a different agenda.
The former model and iconic face of the Sixties has had a more hands-on approach to developing her eponymous new skincare range.
"When it came to the final formulations, I decided they should all be tested on me, " she says. "So a dermatologist smeared little samples all over my back and put plasters over the top. I was covered in them - it looked ridiculous.
"I had to keep them on for three or four days to see if I was allergic to anything. It was summer in New York and the heat was terrible. I had to keep covered up so I took to wearing a vest top and a cardigan.
"But one day I must have got fed up. As I was getting into the lift to my apartment, I whipped off my cardigan. An elderly lady was already in the lift. She caught sight of my back covered with plasters, leant forward and sympathetically inquired: 'Drugs?'" Twiggy hoots with laughter at the memory, aware of the irony. Despite being such a famous face, she was equally famous for avoiding the worst excesses of the Sixties.
"I was very naive at the time, " she says. "I didn't even drink wine until my late 20s because I didn't like the taste and I was just scared of drugs. I suppose you're either attracted to that sort of thing or you're not."
In 1966 Twiggy was plain Lesley Hornby, a shy 15 year old from Neasden, North London. Legend has it that her doe-eyed picture was spotted in a London hairdresser's shop by a Daily Express journalist who splashed it across a double-page spread to declare her "The Face of 1966".
Within a week she had adopted the moniker Twiggy - a nickname given to her by her hairdresser boyfriend Nigel Davies, who later changed his own name to Justin de Villeneuve - and was taking the fashion world by storm, something that left her bemused.
"I hated the way I looked then, " she says. "I was really, really skinny. I looked like a little boy. When this happened to me, I really thought that everyone had gone mad. If I had a fairy godmother, I'd have changed the lot."
At 54, Twigs, as she introduces herself, is still tiny. The huge eyes that were so much part of her look are still her most striking feature, although the Bambi-style eyelashes are gone.
The future is her skincare range.
"I've always loved cosmetics and I wanted to put together a range that suited my sort of skin, " she says.
"Also, I wanted it to be affordable and available to everyone."
Twiggy keeps fit with regular dance classes and tries to eat carefully, insisting she does everything in moderation but "loves wine". She adds:
"I tap dance - which everyone should try. You learn a few moves and you feel like Fred Astaire. I also do Pilates and I've always made sure I get lots of sleep."
Twiggy says she is not interested in plastic surgery - yet. "I think I look fine at the moment, " she says, "but I wouldn't rule it out in the future.
"I've been put off by what I've seen in Los Angeles. I mean, look at Botox. You're injecting poison into yourself. What are people going to do in 20 years' time if it's gathered in their liver or kidneys?"
Despite being best remembered for being in front of a still camera, Twiggy spent only four years modelling before she turned to acting.
The London flat she shares with her actor husband of 16 years, Leigh Lawson, is full of her acting memorabilia - directors' chairs round the dining table, the Golden Globes she won in 1972 for The Boy Friend on the mantelpiece and a gushy note from Laurence Olivier framed in the loo. In 2001 Twiggy was signed as a presenter for ITV1's daytime show This Morning but critics savaged her as "wooden" and she was on-screen for just over a month.
"The experience didn't put me off doing television because I quite enjoyed it, " she says. "Everyone was waiting for the show to fail. There was lots of stuff going on that I'd rather not go into and I was the scapegoat. Richard and Judy were clever and left at the right time."
WHEN she is not working, Twiggy likes to spend time with her family. Her daughter, Carly, 25, is an animator and Twiggy is quick to point out the many pieces of art around the flat that are Carly's work.
She says of her
relationship with Leigh, whose actor son Jason, 27, shares a house with
Carly: "We were lucky to find each other. We'd both been through bad
marriages. When we met we were a bit older and, because we'd had kids, we
were a bit wary, too, but things have worked out."
