As charming and engaging as the woman herself
In the mid 60s in England, a teenager named Lesley Hornby decided she wanted to break into the supposedly glamorous world of modelling. A writer at the Daily Express saw some photos of her, decided to make a spread using Lesley’s nickname, and declare her the face of 1966. Within weeks the phenomenon of Twiggy had taken off.
The face of an era, Twiggy went on after a few years of modelling to star in films, sing, host her own television show, and help revive the then flagging British brand of Marks & Spencer. All this, and she is an unfailingly pleasant, polite, and loved individual.
Twiggy is directed by Sadie Frost who previously made a similar documentary about Mary Quant.
This is essentially a feel-good doco. For starters the subject is just such an all-round delightful woman. And it is, like Quant, partly an exercise in nostalgia for the 60s of popular imagination. But there are still some interesting points which are very lightly touched on, but sadly not suited to a deep dive in this sort of genre. First we have the uncomfortable relationship between a 15-year-old Twiggy and her 25 year old boyfriend Nigel, who would change his name to Justin de Villeneuve and declare himself her manager. Twiggy is quick (too quick?) to declare that they didn’t begin a proper relationship until she was 16. The second interesting issue this film raises is one of class. Twiggy was one of the first (if not the first) major models from a working class background. Joanna Lumley, one of the interviewees on the film, emphasises that models then were generally upper middle class girls who had been to finishing school.
Along with the always engaging Lumley interviewees include Patty Boyd, Dustin Hoffman, Stella McCartney, Brooke Shields, and of course Twigs herself. Footage includes both archival and new material.
This is a consistently engaging portrait of a fascinating woman, capturing some of the social changes since Twiggy first burst onto the scene.
Twiggy is showing as part of the Russell Hobbs British Film Festival at Palace Nova Eastend and Prospect.
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