Twiggy
" At 17 Leslie Hornby took hold of the world. At 21 she let it go, she was the original waif, a 60's phenomenon a superstar. She was Twiggy" (Vogue). Leslie Hornby was the revolutionary woman who changed the idea of beauty in the eyes of the fashion industry and the entire world. Twiggy exemplified the androgynous mod look that swept America as it had Britain and much of Europe in the 1960's. She healthily maintained a 5 ft 6 1/2 inch 90 lb body. Based on her thin figure, a nickname of "Twiggy" was derived. Twiggy's popularity not only produced many people who tried to look like her but also drastically increased the hourly wages of models. She paved the way for current top models like Kate Moss, Elle MacPherson, and Linda Evangelista.Twiggy was major trendsetter in America during the sixties even though she was born in England. She was found by Nigel Davies in a salon, while working as a shampoo girl. He saw her potential and immediately took her to get a haircut at a Mr. Leonard's trendy salon in London. Mr. Leonard put her picture in his shop window, and a short time later that picture was featured in the London Daily Express with a caption that read "This is the face of 1966" (Wilson). Davies, who preferred t
Twiggy is revolutionary. She is the pivotal woman who changed the image of the ideal woman, and the face and body of fashion models. Her popularity allowed her to drastically increase a models income. She showed the world that models no longer were just a pretty face but also shrewd businesswomen with enterprises of their own. Twiggy paved the way for the top models of today, and will always be remembered. Her body matched Diana Vreeland's description of the perfect contemporary woman: "the straightest legs, knees like little peaches, tiny narrow supple feet, rounded arms, and beautiful wrists and throat. She was both modern and romantic. She was perfect. " (Vogue). Remarkably, Twiggy's favorite thing to eat was ice cream, bananas and hot fudge, she doesn't drink or smoke but "eats like a horse" (Time). Twiggy is one of those girls who has an extremely high metabolism and is healthy but just cannot gain weight. As a child, her mother was very worried about Leslie's thinness and took her to see many doctors. The doctors concluded that the thinness was just a result of her body type and couldn't be helped. When asked what she thought of her figure as "the thing of the future" she replied "it's not really what you call a figure, is it" (Wilson)? Twiggy, as well as thousands of other teenagers, went through years of thinking of themselves as ugly. She couldn't stand her thinness, but as she became popular she began to like it (Twiggy). Ironically, the thin frame that she hated was the thing that drove many girls and women to hate their bodies as well. They saw all the pictures of thin Twiggy and aspired to look like that, but when they discovered it was not easily achieved it drove women to physical hate. This physical hate drove and still drives women to anorexia, bulimia, alcohol and drug abuse which leads us to one of the major differences between Twiggy and Moss. Twiggy obtained her figure while remaining healthy, but Moss obtains her figure by resorting to drugs and alcohol abuse. Twiggy's next step in her career was to travel to
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Approximate Word count = 1381
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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