THE word "tubby" would send shivers down the back of any potential supermodel.

So when former Accrington beauty Emma Bridgeman turned up for a fashion photo-shoot she was stunned when stylists transformed her into one of the most famous tubbies around!

Unknown to Emma, and three fellow first-year fashion and design students at the University of Central Lancashire, she had been hand-picked for a makeover with a difference - to be transformed into one of the famous Teletubbies.

Who was it that said fashion was glamorous? Standing in a Lancashire park with pipe cleaners and tin foil propping your hair up in Laa Laa's television-aerial style is no joke, you know...as Emma revealed. "We had no idea that we were going to be turned into the Teletubbies," she laughed.

"I was Laa Laa - the one with the yellow television aerial on its head. It was a good laugh, but not quite what we expected."

Emma, 21, moved to Haslingden from Manchester Road, Accrington, three years ago. Her parents still own a shop in the town.

Her ambition is to be a fashion designer when she finishes her studies - not a model. She added: "This wasn't the start of a career and I don't watch the Teletubbies at all, which is probably a good thing considering."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.