Twiggy: The Making Of A National Treasure

From Neasden teenager to global icon, Twiggy’s story is far bigger than the Swinging Sixties. Sadie Frost’s new documentary – screened at the inaugural Chelsea Arts Festival – celebrates not just the world’s first supermodel but a singer, actress, Broadway star, designer and, above all, a devoted mother and grandmother. More than 50 years on, Twiggy remains the nation’s doe-eyed darling – proof that style, kindness and reinvention never go out of fashion.

Review: Sadie Frost’s Twiggy Documentary Screening

There could be no better film at the heart of Chelsea Arts Festival than Twiggy, Sadie Frost’s intimate and celebratory documentary of Britain’s most famous model. With her boyish crop, doe-eyed gaze and coltish limbs, Twiggy became a global icon at just 16 when she stormed into fashion in 1966 – an era when the King’s Road was buzzing with Mods on scooters, sharp tailoring, and the soundtrack of The Who and Small Faces. Unlike the aristocratic, cut-glass-voiced models from Lucy Clayton College who came before her, Lesley Hornby from Neasden was a working-class teenager with a cockney accent who was told she was too thin, too short and too flat-chested to make it. Within months, she had become the face of a new generation.

‘When I was really young I was really shy because I always thought I was funny looking. I didn’t look like the women in the magazines,’ Twiggy told the audience at Everyman Chelsea after the screening. Perhaps that self-effacing streak explains why she took her overnight fame in her stride. She didn’t set out to change the rules of beauty – but by dint of who she was, she rewrote them.

Sadie Frost’s film makes clear that Twiggy was never just a model. She was the world’s first supermodel, yes, appearing on more than 20 Vogue covers and working with the likes of Richard Avedon and Cecil Beaton, but she was also an actress, a singer, a Broadway star, a designer and, most importantly, a mother. The documentary is careful not to sensationalise or dramatise her story. ‘I wanted to make a film that was celebratory,’ Frost explained. ‘Why not make documentaries that celebrate people, rather than pull them apart?’

Twiggy herself admitted she had been approached many times before to make a film about her life, but always said no. It was Frost’s vision that changed her mind. ‘When I saw the first cut, I cried,’ she said. ‘It was a big decision, but I trusted Sadie because she’s a woman with a career very similar to mine – she understood me.’

Twiggy’s career highlights go far beyond fashion shoots. In the early 1970s, she made her acting debut in Ken Russell’s The Boy Friend (1971), which earned her two Golden Globes. Yet the leap from screen to stage proved to be her proudest achievement. In The Boy Friend’s Broadway revival, she overcame her terror of performing live in front of thousands. ‘I really didn’t think I could do that,’ she admitted. ‘The thought of going out in front of 2,000 people a night to sing and dance live was terrifying. But Tommy [Tune] told me, “There’s no such word as can’t – pack your bags and get out to New York.” And he proved I could do it.’

The run lasted 18 months and remains, Twiggy says, her proudest professional moment: not the glamorous covers or campaigns, but the triumph of proving to herself she could do the thing she thought she couldn’t.

Twiggy’s singing career is another chapter too often overlooked. She recorded albums in the 1970s and 80s, and was the very last person to sing live with Bing Crosby. During the taping of his Merrie Olde Christmas special in London in September 1977, she duetted with the crooner on Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. ‘Usually with TV specials you pre-record and mime,’ she recalled. ‘But Bing said, “No, I never pre-record. I sing live.” And I thought, oh my God, I’ve got to sing live with Bing Crosby.’ A month later, Crosby died of a heart attack after a round of golf in Spain. 

If the 1960s made Twiggy a star, the 2000s cemented her as a national treasure. At a time when Marks & Spencer’s fashion offering was floundering, Twiggy’s joyful ad campaigns helped turn it around. Her combination of glamour and groundedness – at once relatable yet iconic – resonated with British shoppers. She later collaborated on designing collections for M&S, proving her commercial as well as cultural clout.

What emerges most strongly from Frost’s documentary is Twiggy’s unwavering commitment to her family. She has spoken candidly about the challenges of being a single mother after the death of her first husband, actor Michael Witney, and how her daughter Carly kept her grounded through it all. Now a grandmother, she insists that her home life remains her greatest source of pride. ‘You can’t go home with a film or an album,’ she reflected. ‘My husband, my kids, my grandkids – that’s the most important thing.’

Her personal philosophy is simple but resonant: ‘I believe in kindness. If you give out kindness, it comes back to you.’ It is perhaps this quality – not the doe-eyed beauty, nor the fashion fame – that makes Twiggy so enduringly beloved.

Today, in her mid-seventies, Twiggy remains relevant: fronting campaigns (Charlotte Tilbury’s recent one among them), starring on magazine covers, and inspiring younger generations. At Chelsea Arts Festival, the full house at Everyman Chelsea was not just celebrating a model, but a life lived with courage, reinvention and warmth.

Twiggy and Sadie Frost both appeared at the inaugural Chelsea Arts Festival (18-21 September 2025).

Watch the documentary Twiggy on iPlayer