The first-ever supermodel celebrates her birthday today

Twiggy is sometimes called history's first supermodel, although she herself considered Jean Shrimpton (who, incidentally, looked nothing like her) the first supermodel. What's undeniable, however, is that she pioneered the female figure that long dominated the covers of fashion magazines. At 168 cm tall, Twiggy weighed only 41 kg in the 1960s, and her measurements were 79, 58, and 81 cm.

She became famous more or less by accident, visiting Leonard's, an expensive London hair salon, at the age of 16. He offered her, instead of the usual procedure she wanted, to model a new haircut he had invented, and she accepted. Twiggy (then Lesley Hornby) later said that she, as a 16-year-old, was so smitten by the luxury of this beauty salon that she didn't dare refuse.

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Leonard worked with her for six hours, after which a photograph was taken for a salon interview by Barry Lategan. A journalist from the Daily Express saw the portrait, and the publication subsequently published an article about Twiggy, calling her "the face of '66."

Fame began after that, the stages of which we won't list here—it would take too long, and you can read about them on Wikipedia (but you should read the English version). The most interesting thing here is how Twiggy managed to escape the fate seemingly doomed to her by the "swinging London" of the 1960s.

And this fate was illustrated by Edie Sedgwick, who was several years older than Twiggy, strikingly similar in type, hung out at "Andy Warhol's factory," and was Bob Dylan's lover, whom he abandoned and who became addicted to barbiturates, which killed her at the age of 28.

Twiggy, however, left modeling in 1970, declaring she was "tired of being a clothes hanger." She turned to film (introduced to it by the then-fashionable avant-garde film director Ken Russell, with whom she was friends) and theater. She proved herself a talented actress, as evidenced by two Golden Globes and a Tony nomination (the theater equivalent of an Oscar), and also a singer.

Furthermore, unlike Sedgwick, she sorted out her love life and broke up with her boyfriend, Nigel Davis, who had been managing her affairs since 1966 and later claimed to be the one who created Twiggy. It's worth noting that he did indeed come up with the name, but judging by his stage name—Justin de Villeneuve—he was still a bit of a provincial.

Well, that's basically it. Twiggy has repeatedly emphasized that she dislikes being imitated as she was in the 1960s, as her thinness back then was natural. She has given birth to a daughter, is married for the second time (her first husband died), and lives in London's prestigious Kensington district. Today, she turns 76.