Everyone knows Twiggy. The freckled, startlingly skinny, crop-haired, 16-year-old schoolgirl who became a fashion sensation and the symbol of a new kind of woman with a peculiar, androgynous sex appeal. Almost overnight, the Bambi-eyed model changed the way feminine beauty was defined…
She was flat-chested, her arms were rail-thin and her hair was cut like a boy’s. Twiggy was indeed the total opposite of what a woman was expected to look like during the 60s. In fact, her body was so slender that it was hard to tell whether she was a woman or a child. Yet that didn’t stop her from becoming a sex symbol as well as an international fashion phenomenon of unprecedented magnitude.
Unsurprisingly, Twiggy – with her heavily mascaraed eyelashes and almost prepubescent figure – is often considered synonymous with the swinging sixties: a turbulent decade that witnessed both Beatlemania and the birth of the mini-skirt. In fact, much of the sexuality of the 'mini' had its origins in the innocent, ‘Lolita-like’ image of the long-legged Twiggy.
When the 60s ended, however, Twiggy’s modelling career, launched only a few years earlier, came to an end as well. And the mini? Well, it went on to have a successful career in fashion and even today, almost 50 years later, it continues to demand attention from women and men alike.
Text:Laura Leivo(ClassicDriver)
Photos:Getty Images
