KEY POINTS:
"Still in Vogue!" writes Twiggy, across a photograph of herself dressed in high-street cream and pearls in a copy of Vogue magazine. Actually, she's very much in vogue, since she appears not once, not twice, but four times.
First photographed in the 60s, by the equally immortal David Bailey, as the "Icon for the Mod Generation". Next, in her present deified role as the saviour of Marks & Spencer, complete with laugh lines and bags under her eyes: icon of the modern matron of the middle shires.
The longevity of Twiggy says something about her intuition - not least because she's managed to survive without the customary rituals of celebrity self-abasement. Thankfully, so far, she has refused to deposit herself in the jungle or try to turn herself into Doris Day in Stars in Their Eyes.
What Twiggy has done is stay comfortable in her own skin. She's been talking to her own generation since she was first discovered, aged 16, in Neasden, north London, and splashed across two pages of the Daily Express as "The Face of 1966", and she still flags up an equally potent message.
Today's 50-something woman can add pounds and avoid multiple chemical peels and still look as if she's ageing well - at her normal chronological pace. Now isn't that astounding! Look at Helen Mirren, Francesca Annis, Judy Dench - and the first of the Big Spenders, Shirley Bassey, the other recruit to the M&S advertising campaign.
The French have understood for decades that mutton can taste and look as good as lamb - bizarrely, it's M&S's magazine campaign that has spread the word.
Model and fellow M&S star Erin O'Connor, wrote of Twiggy in Vogue: "I'm very inspired by her original pictures.
"Twiggy defined her whole era and what I like most is that it was not meant to happen. She was the absolute contradiction in terms of what models were supposed to be and she made it work by just being completely herself. It's great doing M&S with her. She's a live wire ... We just sit around and listen to Her Majesty speak."
Her Majesty said once: "More so than at any time in history, older women are living wonderful, independent lives. They're financially stable and ready to enjoy an active social life, with or without an other half."
She was born Lesley Hornby in 1949, one of three daughters, to Norman, a Bolton carpenter, and his wife, Nell. At Brondesbury High School in Neasden, she was known as "Sticks". At 15, she was 1.6m and weighed 38kg. She was initially turned down as a model - deemed too short, too skinny and too androgynous. "I was a very shy, insecure teenager," she recalled."
On the Christmas cover of Honey, soon after her debut, she was pictured with Vidal Sassoon bobbed hair, eyelashes as long as spiders' legs painted on her lower lids, cupid lips, sequin mini-shift, shiny Christmas balls hanging from her ears and her knees no bigger than Adam's apples.With dandy boyfriend Justin de Villeneuve she had created "a look".
She says she's not solely driven by ambition; she certainly has courage - venturing out over the years into areas in which her talent has waxed and waned.
In 1971, she appeared singing and dancing in Ken Russell's film The Boy Friend. Twelve years on, she starred in the Broadway hit My One and Only and unsuccessfully tried daytime TV. Now she's on our screens as a judge in America's Next Top Model.
She gives the impression that her home life is the achievement of which she is most proud. Her first husband, American actor and alcoholic Michael Whitney, died of a heart attack when their daughter, Carly, was five.
Twiggy has lived with the British actor Leigh Lawson for 20 years and is close to his son, Ace. She likes cooking and sewing; does Pilates and tap dancing. She is involved with charities, including Age Concern.
"I actually feel very ordinary and very down to earth and very normal," she says. "I love being a wife, I love being a mum. I don't feel that different from most people."
A few years ago, Twiggy launched her own skincare range for cheapie UK chain Asda. She is canny. While 95 per cent of ads are targeted at the under-50s, the disposable income of over-50s is 30 per cent higher than that of the young.
"Older models are finally stealing the limelight," she said recently. "It's about bloody time." Well said, Your Majesty.
- Independent
