Twiggy: My dad said to me, 'You may be making a big mistake'

Twiggy and Sadie Frost tell Esther McCarthy about working together on a new documentary film about the iconic fashion model and the exciting era in which she emerged

Twiggy (Lesley Lawson) during a fashion shoot on the King's Road, London, in 1966. (Photo by Stan Meagher/Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

In the mid-1960s, a fashion-mad teenager named Lesley Hornby took part in her first photo shoot, sporting a new cropped haircut. She couldn’t have known it then, but she was about to be unveiled to the world as Twiggy, one of fashion’s most iconic models and the distinctive face of an exciting period in cultural history.

It was the kind of overnight fame that changed her life - and for the unassuming, working-class teenager, a step into the unknown.

“I was more surprised than anyone,” she says, remembering those early flushes of fame following the Irish premiere of a new documentary, Twiggy, at the Dublin International Film Festival.

“You've got to remember, like most teenage girls, I had Jean Shrimpton on my wall. She was this amazing creature with that face and that long hair. I remember passing her once in Regent Street, and it was this form, these long legs. She was just so gorgeous. Even though there was an inner dream - oh wouldn't it be wonderful to model and do that - it didn't cross my mind that I could do it.

“If I'd have gone to a model agency, they wouldn't have taken me. I was too small and too thin. That wasn't really my path. I was hoping to go to art school and do fashion and design because that's my other passion.” 

Sadie Frost and Twiggy at the Dublin International Film Festival screening of Twiggy at the Lighthouse Cinema. Picture: Brian McEvoy

A new documentary brings to life that vibrant time in fashion and shows us why Twiggy was so special. Directed by Sadie Frost - who knows a thing or two about fame and fashion herself - Twiggy uses strong archival photographs and footage to show how the teenager became one of the first-ever supermodels.

Dubbed ‘The Face of 1966’ as Beatlemania took over the world in a time of great cultural and historic change, she captured a youthful spirit, energy and vitality, often smiling and laughing into the camera in an industry where other models pouted.

Now Leslie Lawson, she became a global fashion star and went on to forge successful careers in film, stage and music. Having been thrust into the spotlight at such a young age, she credits her family and others closest to her with helping her navigate those times - including her dad, who supported her leaving school to pursue her career at the age of 17.

“My wise old dad, who I was really, really close to, he said to me: ‘You may be making a big, big mistake’, because it could have lasted three months, couldn't it?,” she recalls now.

“He said: ‘It probably won't last long, but if I won't let you leave school, you might end up resenting me or even hating me all your life, because you'll always wonder, what if?’ 

“So I had him behind me. When the piece (the first photo shoot) came out, they were ringing my home to book me, because I wasn't with an agent. My mum was picking up the phone. Dad said: ‘If you do it, you've got to have somebody with you’. So either my mum came to the shoot, or my dad came to the shoot, or Justin, who was my then boyfriend. I think I'm like my dad. I'm quite sensible.” 

 A huge part of her early interest, she says, was in creating fashion. “I love clothes - I learned to sew because my mum made most of our clothes, probably for economic reasons. I learned to sew really young because my sisters made their clothes. And I was a mod, so you couldn't buy what I wanted to wear!” 

Lawson went on to become a global fashion sensation but develop other career successes, too. Her role in Ken Russell’s The Boy Friend (1971) earned her two Golden Globe Awards. She received a Tony nomination for her Broadway debut in the musical My One and Only. She has hosted and starred in several TV shows and more recently, featured in fashion campaigns for Marks and Spencer.

Twiggy in 1966. 

There have been many approaches from documentary filmmakers over the years, but Lawson and Frost forged a connection after working on a podcast together.

“I thought: We could do this. We could work on it. I can trust her. I can tell her things that I probably wouldn't tell somebody else, because I'm a quite private person, I'm quite internal. Also I loved the fact that she was a woman, and also she's lived a kind of similar... she's been a model. She's been a wonderful actress. She's done very many different things, like I have done many different things. So I thought, well, she'll understand where I'm coming from.”

 Frost also understood the cultural history and zeitgeist of that time, having directed the well-received Quant —about iconic fashion designer Mary Quant — which was released in 2021.

“I was already familiar with a lot of the archive, and going to that period of looking at archive of the '60s and '70s, I just thought, what an amazing life and to make celebratory films, documentaries, is such a nice thing, especially in this miserable day and age,” says Frost.

One of Twiggy’sgreat strengths is its busy use of archive footage and photography, and Frost and her team of filmmakers make the very most of the iconic visuals at their disposal. Still, bringing the scale of it that we see on screen took a great deal of work.

“We didn't give up on the first search. That's why it took a long time. There are 1,300 images in the film,” says Frost. “I had hundreds and hundreds of files sent to me — you go through it, and you go through it, and my editor, who I worked with on Mary Quant.

“There would be posters of Twiggy in the flat that we lived in when we were kids, she was already a name. So you just feel like you know somebody, and then we kind of met over the years. You know this name and this persona, but I really wanted to get to know the real Twiggy.”

 Working on the documentary, both of them say, has been a bonding experience. And both women are keen to explore new projects in the future. “We really want to work together as actors,” says Frost. “We want to get a TV series together. We have quite a good rapport together.” 

• Following its Irish premiere at Dublin International Film Festival, including a public interview with Twiggy and director Sadie Frost at the festival’s Tanqueray 0.0% Film Club,Twiggyopens in cinemas from March 7