The Unisex Cockney Carnaby Street, Mods, Mary Quant and Mini-Coopers..

all part of the heritage that we know as the British Invasion. As you can see there was much more to it than the music, although it was the catalyst, or in effect and not demeaning the musi c, but the music was the rich manure that nutured a garden of fashion and style and set the tone for things to come...including the super model of the day, penc il thin Twiggy who rose above the crowd in a world dominated by Sophia, Bardot a nd Gina...French and Italian buxom beauties with large knockers and full tilt bo ogie knickers. Lesley Lawson...better known as Twiggy set the covers of fashion magazines ablaz e around the world, not to mention a look, an adrogynous look that was sexy, not sexless, and overnight. skinny was in. With a 31-23-32 figure, not big and meat y big and bouncy by any stretch, at the age of 16 her comet began it's journey t hrough the universe of pop culture and international fame. Twiggy was born in 19 49. and by the age of 16 in 1965 was a part of the London scene. Mods, hippies, hipsters, rockers, bankers, models along with wannabe's on the fringe of the fri nge. London was buzzing with fashion designers and high style hairdressers at the tim e, and Lesley Lawson was dating one of the promising young stars of the salon. H e suggested that she go visit super star stylist Leonard, who was a friend of hi s. Seems Leonard had an idea for a new look called the "crop cut" and wanted to try iy out on aspiring models to test consumer reaction. Twig, (childhood nickname) agreed to try something new and placed her thin frame in the stylists chair and letting Leonard loose with scissors and blow dryer. A fterwards a photographer friend of Leonards came by to take Twig's photo for pla cement on the salon wall as a form of an in-house advert. Now Twig was enshrined in silver nitrate, hung high on the wall, gazing down on what would soon be her domain...the World of Fashion and Style. The plot thickens at this point. Leonard's was visited one day by a fashion jour nalist for one of the London mags who wanted to do a feature story on King Leona rdo. While killing time in the salon, he noticed Twig's photo perched on the wal l of hairstyle fame. The journalist inquired about her. and asked if he could "m eet this Cockney kid." Leonard arranged for the fateful meet that would in time be the face, and the lo ok that would launch a thousand fashion ships. It wasn't long before her modelin g career was in gear and guided at first by her hairdresser boyfriend, who also suggested she change her working name now to Twiggy. She did, and the paparazzi were in a feeding frenzy. She modeled and appeared on fashion magazines around t he world from Europe to Asia to America. She graced the covers of Vogue, and by 1966 she was named The Face of 1966 by the Daily Express in London, as well as t he British Woman of the Year. It was the year of the Uni-sex look where boys will be girls, and girls will be boys ,just like la-la-lov'ly Lola in the Kinks song of the same name. Men were w earing bright colors, carrying purses, ok, man-bags for you homophobes, and wome n were donning three piece double breasted suits with Fedora's ala Marlene Dietr ich, while on the other side of the Atlantic, Rudi Gernreich had blasted the top off of the bathing suit world with his invention of the topless bikini and even a version with a window in the crotch to show off Madame's pubic hair as though a new show premier on the telly looking for a ratings boost, or a boost of some sort. Nehru Jackets, jumpsuits from outer space and a plethor of pubic patch sw imsuits were taking over the "look", I mean even Dion and Sinatra sported Nehru Jackets, both looking uncomforably out of place in the new age of youth. Sinatra , especially so, but he did get Mia Farrow who not surprisingly at the time had a crop hairstyle very familiar on the world stage by now thanks to that skinny l

ittleCockney girl with big eyes and eye lashes so long you she could tickle you on the streets of Glasgow while she was standing in Soho.