Before the eyeliner! Strictly’s Claudia Winkleman, 49, looks worlds away from her usual ballroom glam as she poses fresh-faced in newly unearthed snaps from early modelling days
- In the undated images, the TV personality looks youthful as she sports a light palette of makeup, complemented with just a smudge of eyeliner
- Claudia is shown striking a series of playful poses while donning a range of ensembles that include a plain black top, an ivory skirt suit and a plunging dress
- She has since gone on to have a successful TV career, presenting the likes of Strictly, Britain’s Best Home Cook and The Great British Sewing Bee
- The beloved TV star, who also presents a show on Radio 2, recently joked that rockers Gene Simmons, 71, and Alice Cooper, 73, are her image inspirations
As one half of the hosting duo on Strictly Come Dancing, she’s become known for her penchant for applying lashings of eyeliner while also sporting a long fringe.
But in newly unearthed snaps from her early modelling days, Claudia Winkleman is seen looking worlds away from her ballroom glam as she poses fresh-faced.
In the undated images, the TV personality, 49, looks youthful as she sports a light palette of makeup, complemented with just a smudge of eyeliner.
Wow! In newly unearthed snaps from her early modelling days, Claudia Winkleman is seen looking worlds away from her ballroom glam as she poses fresh-faced. Pictured right in 2019
And before she settled on her glossy raven locks, the star is seen with her light brown tresses styled in a long, sleek blowout as she poses up a storm.
Claudia is shown striking a series of playful poses while donning a range of ensembles that include a plain black top, an ivory skirt suit and a plunging dress.
The unearthing of the images comes after she was seen looking unrecognisable in a BBC clip from 1996 where she appears as a ‘chat up connoisseur’.
Presenter Claudia, who was just 24 at the time, joined relationship expert Ben Renshaw on Good Morning with Anne and Nick.
Newly unearthed: In the undated images, the TV personality, 49, looks youthful as she sports a light palette of makeup, complemented with just a smudge of eyeliner
Tress-ed to impress: And before she settled on her glossy raven locks, the star is seen with her light brown tresses styled in a long, sleek blowout as she poses up a storm
The throwback clip was shared by the BBC Archive’s Twitter account, they tweeted: ‘#OnThisDay 1996: Good Morning with Anne and Nick drafted in some dating experts to provide some top tips for improving your pulling power.’
Claudia looked almost unrecognisable in the video as it was before her current signature fringe and heavy eyeliner look.
On the episode of Good Morning with Anne and Nick, hosted by Anne Diamond and Nick Owen – which ran from 1992-1996, Claudia joked that she ‘hardly ever’ gets chatted up but when she does she gets ‘very overexcited’.
Claudia quipped: ‘Eye contact. It’s all eye contact but it can be terrifying. You can be sitting at the other side of the bar making eye contact for an hour and a half and then he’ll leave.
Look: She is pictured right hosting Strictly in 2020, years after perfecting her signature look
‘They might instigate it – if I girl comes up to you and says, “Have you got a light?” she’s got four boxes of matches in her bag. She does not want a light, she wants something else. Boys are so sweet and I don’t think they realise.’
Fans were quick to react to the clip as one person said Claudia looked ‘unrecognisable’, another shared a heart emoji while a different account joked it was before the star’s signature ‘the fringe’.
Claudia has since gone on to have a very successful TV career presenting the likes of Strictly Come Dancing, Britain’s Best Home Cook and The Great British Sewing Bee. She also hosts her own show on BBC Radio 2.
The star married husband Kris Thykier in 2000 and they share three children Jake, 18, Matilda, 14, and Arthur, nine.
Pose: Claudia is shown striking a series of playful poses while donning a range of ensembles
Career: The snapshots were taken years before Claudia embarked on her successful TV career
Claudia recently declared that she ‘can’t wait’ to turn 50 as she counts down the months until reaching the milestone birthday.
The TV personality plans to greet the big day with aplomb when it arrives in January, particularly as she’s certain she’ll look the same.
Speaking during an appearance on Women’s Health Going for Goal podcast, the star also displayed her dry wit as she joked that rockers Gene Simmons, 71, and Alice Cooper, 73, are her image inspirations.
She said: ‘I love getting older… I can’t wait to be fifty. It’s not that I want time to go fast, but I’m absolutely fine with it, and I’ll still look the same. I want to look like Gene Simmons or Alice Cooper, so it’s not like I want to look young and bouncy and fresh.’
Way back when: The unearthing of the images comes after she was seen looking unrecognisable in a BBC clip from 1996 where she appears as a ‘chat up connoisseur’, left
While the rock stars were well known for layering on heavy makeup in the prime of their music careers, Claudia has admitted that her ‘love affair’ is with fake tan.
Explaining how it all started, the mother-of-three said: ‘There was a product called Ultra Glow and it was a pat of just brown, just like a solid piece of something that could make you teak.
‘My mum used it and I’ve always forever been in love with, I think it’s Guerlain, it’s called Terracotta, it’s an unbelievable product, the powder.
‘I just put some on my face and suddenly felt – it’s a big word but I’m going to say it – alive. That was it, that was my love affair.’
Start of her career: The Strictly Come Dancing presenter, 49, who was just 24 at the time, joined relationship expert Ben Renshaw on Good Morning with Anne and Nick
Archive: The clip was shared by the BBC Archive’s Twitter account and Claudia looked almost unrecognisable, left, as it was before her current signature fringe and eyeliner look, right
Claudia was born to author and journalist Eve Pollard and publisher Barry Winkleman. Following her parents’ divorce when she was four, Eve went on to marry newspaper editor and broadcaster Sir Nicholas Lloyd when Claudia was seven.
Discussing how her upbringing shaped her relationship with image, she said: ‘I was brought up in a house without mirrors, so my mum is a huge believer – and my dad – in the shell is only that…
‘What I look like, how I’ve done my eyeliner – that’s not the shiz, the stuff is the inside, the chat, the brains, the laughs, the loyalty, the kindness, the cooking an extraordinary roast chicken.
‘What you look like is the least interesting thing about you, it’s got to be, because it is all going to fall apart, and I hope I’ve passed that onto my kids as well.’
Career: Claudia has since gone on to have a very successful TV career presenting the likes of Strictly Come Dancing, Britain’s Best Home Cook and The Great British Sewing Bee. She also hosts her own show on BBC Radio 2 (pictured on Pyjama Party in 1996)
Smitten: The star married husband Kris Thykier in 2000 and they share three children Jake, 18, Matilda, 14, and Arthur, nine (pictured in 2019)
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