Twiggy

The moment that made Twiggy

Images of fame and famine go under hammer for charity

Mark Brown, arts correspondent
Friday July 28, 2006
The Guardian

Gawky elegance... Twiggy, photographed by Barry Lategan

She was plain Lesley Hornby at the time, a pretty and slight 16-year-old shampoo girl from Neasden who became the world's first supermodel after her picture made it into the papers.

The striking 1966 picture of Twiggy taken by Barry Lategan was one of more than 200 images donated by photographers for auction last night at Bonhams in London for the charity Help the Hospices.

Lategan has fond memories of the day Twiggy walked confidently into his Baker Street studio. After she had had her hair done by one of London's top hairdressers, the photoshoot began.

"I looked through my camera and this face looked back at me and I turned round to Leonard [the hairdresser] and just went 'wow'. It was the effect of her looking back at me, I can't find the adjective to describe it. I think it was the eyes, she had such presence.

"She was gawky but she had a sort of elegance. Some people cower in front of the camera, but she became who she was."

One of Lategan's photographs was seen by Daily Express journalist Deirdre McSharry and it appeared in the paper headlined The Face of 66.

The photographer can even claim a role in selecting the name that identified her for the rest of a career which took in acting, presenting and music as well as being an international icon. "Her boyfriend said 'stop biting your nails, Twigs' - short for Twiggy. I said 'if you ever go professional you should call her that name', so I suppose I'm partly responsible."

Other photographs that went under the hammer include one from the 1998 Sudan famine by photojournalist Tom Stoddart. Capturing "a moment of love amidst the hell of the Sudan famine", it shows unbridled love and happiness between two siblings at an emergency feeding centre in Ajiep. Stoddart has witnessed events including the fall of the Berlin wall, Nelson Mandela's election and the siege of Sarajevo. In 1997 he was given behind-the-scenes access to Tony Blair's election campaign.

Tom Murray donated one of 23 images he took of the Beatles in a series known worldwide as The Mad Day: Summer of 68. And John Stoddart provided the snap of Pierce Brosnan from a publicity shoot for his first Bond movie, GoldenEye, in 1995.

Last night's auction, sponsored by the insurance firm Towergate, was the second Living Exposure event in aid of Help the Hospices - last year's event made £78,000. Most of the money this year will go towards the building of a hospice in north Norfolk.