1949-
Fashion Model

"Sticks."

To many who knew her, a Cockney girl named Leslie Hornby would have seemed an unlikely candidate for the world's best-known model; classmates called her "Sticks," referring to her extremely slender, boyish figure. But after she adopted the name "Twiggy," dropped out of school at age fifteen, and, with the assistance of her twenty-five-year-old boyfriend Nigel Davies (who preferred to be called Justin de Villeneuve), began a modeling career in London in 1966, success quickly followed. Her androgynous appearance and the mod styles she characteristically sported captured the imagination of the younger generation.

Cover Girl.

Within a few months Twiggy appeared on the cover or in feature layouts for such prestigious fashion publications as Elle, Paris Match, and the British edition of Vogue. Soon de Villeneuve founded Twiggy Enterprises to handle the young model's expanding business concerns and launched a line of...