Twiggy Look and False Eyelashes

It's not what you'd call a figure is it?

In the 1960s there was only one model anyone was bothered about - Twiggy. Girls dieted and slaved over a hot pair of eye-brow curlers to perfect her look and designers clamoured to have her wear their clothes.

Woman's Mirror magazine had been on the look-out for models who were young and very thin. They found her in Lesley Hornby who was only six and a half stone and a size 6. Designer John Bates described her, rather coldly as 'Narrow body, perfect square shoulders, long legs, small bust'. In other words the opposite of the curvaceous pin-ups of the fifties in the Marilyn Monroe mould.

Twiggy's distinctive look was typified by two elements - her elfin haircut and panda eyes. The first time her hair was cut into the trademark pixie style it reputedly took eight hours. So almost as long as it took women across the land to master applying three sets of false eyelashes to each eye in order to gain the right amount of doe-eyed appeal.

In 1967 a range of Twiggy clothing was launched, presumably to a rather restricted market (hands up who knows ANY six and a half stone, size six women), but the fact that Twiggy's still a star today proves that there was more to her than big eyes and a fancy haircut.