Tina Chow
1951 — 1992
Place of Birth Unknown
Considered a major fashion icon throughout the '80s for her keen fashion sense and an illustrious career as both a fashion model/designer.
Tina Chow was born Bettina Louise Lutz in 1951. In her teens, she and her sister, Adelle, enjoyed early success as Eurasian models for (Japanese cosmetics giant) Shiseido's advertising campaign. This was a primer for Tina's future status as a major fashion icon of the 1980s.
She married restaurateur Michael Chow in 1972, and had two children with him: China (born in 1974), who is now an up-and-coming actress, and Maximillian (born in 1977).
Throughout their marriage, Tina helped Michael run his successful restaurant chain, "Mr. Chow's", and enjoyed the benefits of fame & celebrity. The couple lived an elite and exciting nightlife, and were considered to be quite prominent in the New York art world (artist friends included the late Keith Haring, Andy Warhol, and Jean-Michel Basquiat).
Given how enduring her influence has been, it's surprising to realize Tina Chow was never a mainstream beauty. Half Japanese, half German-American, she started modeling as a teen (and did so sporadically her entire life), but it wasn't until she moved to New York in the early seventies and became a Warhol-circle regular that her personal style gelled.
Chow loved fashion and wore it with élan. She amassed a legendary collection of vintage clothing and counted Manolo Blahnik and Antonio Lopez among her closest friends. But it was her innate skill at pared-down elegance that still entrances: sleek, clipped hair, minimal makeup, a daily uniform of white T-shirts, black Kenzo trousers, and maybe one of her bamboo-wrapped crystal jewels. Proof that, as Yves Saint Laurent said, "fashion fades; style is eternal."
Biographical information obtained from: http://www.imdb.com/ and http://www.style.com/