Will Twiggy’s new rocks be enough o put the sparks back into Marks?

HER very name encapsulated the stick-thin fashion ideals of the Swinging Sixties. Now, at 64, Twiggy is no longer the willowy size six waif who ‘ate like a horse’ and never gained weight – but instead a more shapely eight-and-a-half stone size ten. And she even admits to wearing support knickers, dieting and only liking her body ‘some days’.

Although she still looks fabulous, the news that even international supermodels are not immune to filling out will be music to the ears of the vast majority of women who don’t have catwalk figures. But it is also the secret weapon that Marks and Spencer hopes can turn round their flagging fortunes on the high street.

When the Sixties style icon came out of modelling retirement a decade ago in an acclaimed advertising campaign for M&S, there was an instant ‘Twiggy Effect’ – and the clothes she wore walked off the shelves, helping to boost the share price to its highest point in eight years.

Now her own online-only fashion collection is proving a bestseller for the store – a rare bright spot for the company which last week reported a dip in profits for the third year running, a problem exacerbated by a general slump in fashion sales.

The secret of her success is that the effects of time have given Twiggy a heightened appreciation of the fashion needs of ordinary women – which can be seen in the designs of her new summer collection, available online today.

In an exclusive preview for The Mail on Sunday, she reveals how she is determined to design for women who never knew what it was to be a ‘twiglet’. Indeed, her new M&S collection goes from a size eight to a size 22.

‘I think that’s only right,’ she says. ‘There are big people out there and they have to be able to buy clothes.

‘I do think that if you’re that size you should look at your diet but these people still have to buy clothes and shouldn’t be left out.

‘Also, it’s Marks’ policy to do that size. It’s not fair when you go into a shop and the sizes only go up to a UK 14.’

While the rest of the high street is littered with sleeveless frocks that require the toned biceps of Michelle Obama, Twiggy has made sure nearly all of her designs have sleeves.

Much more flattering for Ms Average. Her fuchsia number with long, lace sleeves will be particularly popular for summer weddings.

Moreover her range of sensibly hued T-shirts have sleeves that come nearly down to the elbow – a neat solution for those of us afflicted by bingo-wings.

Twiggy admits that in years gone by M&S’s women’s offering was ‘a bit mummish’ but insists it is now ‘brilliant’ and ‘so good for the price’. She won’t reveal her own sales figures but says the line continues to do very well, ‘touch wood’.

‘We did a blue suede biker jacket for spring which sold out within two days. Little did we know we could have ordered ten times the amount,’ she says. ‘We’ve had a sequined jacket that has been in most of the collections in different colours. You can wear it at any age. I never put an age on my clothes and always say the range is from 18 to 80.’

WHEN we meet, her stillfabulous legs are encased in her own Twiggy For M&S Collection black jeggings – a cross between leggings and jeans. But instead of the on-trend low-cut style, they are cut over the waist, which serves to keep her everso-slight muffin top expertly hidden.

‘They’re not bloody hipsters so they don’t dig in,’ Twiggy admits candidly. ‘Even when I was skinny, I hated hipsters: they cut into my hip bone and were really painful. I want clothes that help, that are easy, not precious.’

Her autumn collection will also feature the same very tight, very hot pink dress that she wore to her 35-year-old daughter Carly’s wedding last year.

She confirms with a laugh that she went on the ‘fabulous’ 5.2 diet – in which you eat normally for five days and then for two days restrict yourself to 500 calories – in order to look her best in it. And the support knickers also helped.

‘The 5:2 is so doable because you eat, you don’t starve,’ Twiggy says. ‘I lost about 8lb in the end.’

And the support pants which many see as a garment of torture? ‘Oh yes, I’ve got a mixture. They’re so comfortable actu- ally,’ she says. ‘I’ve had to wear old fashioned corsets for period dramas before. They’re really good for your diet because if you eat a big meal and then have to get into a corset it’s agony.’

Her admission that she now has to watch her figure carefully is a far cry from the accusations of promoting anorexia she endured when she was first discovered at 16 in 1966.

‘I did look different, like an alien being and was e clear that ate and a says. ‘Of get older. what I ea like healt

‘Potatoe though. I c You know you in re

so thin, but I made it very wasn’t anorexic and that I nd nothing happened,’ she se that changes when you much more careful about w. But I’m lucky because I ood. d bread are my downfall, give up really good bread. t crusty bread they bring rants? Oh. My. God. They always bring it when you’re waiting for your food and you’re starving so you fill your face with it.’

But Twiggy is also shocked by how much larger people are today. ‘The average size now is UK 14/16 whereas when I was younger it was 12/14,’ she says seriously. ‘You want to go to Disneyland. I’ve never seen such big bottoms in my life. It’s terrifying,’ she says.

‘I find it upsetting because those peo- ple are probably not going to make it, yet they still walk along eating cream cakes and doughnuts and ice creams and drinking huge buckets of Coca-Cola.

‘And what happens in America usually happens here too. The rise in obesity is really sad. There are so many fast food places that are cheap and easy.

‘When I was growing up in the 1950s we weren’t rich by any stretch of the imagination, but mum used to go to the shops every second day and buy fresh produce from the greengrocers and we ate what was in season. Of course, occasionally we all eat something rubbish, but I do try not to.’

When it comes to design, she is much more strict. ‘I am a perfectionist about it and am also very bossy, but we laugh a lot. After the first fitting and we’ve laughed and cried and screamed and thrown it out the window, we then tweak and pin or say this fabric is really not as it should be. Then we go off for another sample and I try it all on again.

‘It’s serious stuff, but fashion should be fun. I’ve got to an age where if something doesn’t have a fun element I don’t see the point in doing it. Life’s too short.’

It’s easy to see why M&S are redeploying their most effective weapon.

But can the Twiggy Effect again revive the company’s fortunes?