Leslie Hornby
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
to be called Justin De Villeneuve, was quite an interesting
character with his
past resume containing ex-model, ex-antique dealer, and
ex-hairdresser. After he
discovered her, he (age 25) became Twiggy’s (age 15)
agent and boyfriend. He
took her to Paris and a short while after her
popularity grew, she was put on
the cover of Elle Magazine, as well as Paris
Match and the British edition of
Vogue. During Twiggy’s peak success in
Europe, De Villeneuve set up Twiggy
Enterprises Ltd. where he gathered a
line of clothes, false eyelashes,
cosmetics, dolls, and posters all endorsed
by Twiggy. The business brought in
millions. Since Twiggy was so young,
Justin ran the entire business. She only
had to agree to what she liked and
put her name on it. The thought of a Model
taking advantage of her success to
start an enterprise was completely
revolutionary. Once again Twiggy paved the
way for models like Cindy Crawford,
Claudia Schiffer, Kate Moss, and
Naomi Campbell all of which opened highly
successful restaurants, and made
exercise tapes, clothes, calendars, posters,
and many other products. The
enterprising aspect of being a top model was
started by Twiggy and that
influence is commonly seen in the business world
today. Twiggy’s next step in
her career was to travel to the United States.
Twiggy’s success soared
when she made her first visit to America. On March
20,1967 the second she
stepped off the plane she was swarmed by fans, and was
candy to the media’s
eyes. She was like a fever that spread. Everyone wanted a
piece of her. Her
pictures were everywhere. Twiggy’s popularity allowed her to
charge
revolutionary high prices an hour. She charged as much as $240 an
hour
opposed to a 50’s top model like Suzy Parker who only received about $40
an
hour (Century of Models). Once again Twiggy set the standard for 90’s
top
models to earn outrageous sums of money. For example, the 90’s Twiggy
(Kate
Moss) earns about 26.3 million dollars a year. One reason for
Twiggy’s great
success was that the public had never seen anyone like her.
She had a completely
new look that took the entire world by surprise. During
the 40’s, long limbed,
and sophisticated was the trend. In the 50’s, a more
curvaceous womanly look
(Marilyn Monroe) was in. Twiggy set the 60’s waiflike
standard. What a leap
from Marilyn to Twiggy. They were almost completely
opposite. Twiggy’s
influence is still seen on today’s runways and television.
The current day
Twiggy is Kate Moss. Her figure is strikingly similar
(Twiggy 31-22-32, Moss
33-22-35) (Centuryof Models). 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. The average
90’s woman is
approximately 5’5 and weighs 150 lbs. Today fashion models on
average are
close to six feet tall and weigh barely 120 pounds. That is too
skinny to be
healthy. Over three-fourths of professional models have body
weights below
normal (Women’s Health Weekly). A quarter of professional models
meet the
weight criteria for anorexia nervosa, a life threatening disease
(Women’s
Health Weekly). This current obsession with anorexia and bulimia
glorifies
the disease by putting these models on the front covers of
magazines.
Magazine ads featuring the skinny female fashion models have
an immediate
negative impact on a woman’s self esteem according to the
University of
Toronto study published in the International Journal of
eating disorders. The
fashion industry should rethink how it portrays the
female body so more women
can feel comfortable about themselves and not be
pushed towards eating
disorders. People need to realize that you don’t have
to be skinny to be
healthy, or have a perfect body, or a conventional face to
have a great life.
From Twiggy to Kate Moss, the fashion industry has
been attached to idealizing
such extreme slenderness, encouraging real women
to hate their bodies and at
extreme, develop anorexia or bulimia. If these
models are exemplars of ideal
beauty, then the measure for women is that to
be beautiful, starvation level is
required. It appears that the media and the
fashion industry would have the
public believe that ultra thinness symbolizes
beauty when in reality, the
standard represents infertility, and premature
death. The public has to realize
that Twiggy was different. Her slenderness
was natural, and everyone should not
set their physical goals to that of
hers, because it is physically impossible.
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).