The Story of Tina Chow: A Fashion Icon's Life Cut Short By Aids

A post shared by brianduprey (@brianduprey) on Feb 25, 2017 at 6:53am PST No one has ever officially confirmed that Tina got AIDS from Kim d'Estainville: after Tina's death, her family publicly said that she could have contracted the virus from a bisexual Parisian man who had already died of AIDS. But d'Estainville passed away from AIDS only two years before Tina did, and reports of their intimate flings soon caused people to connect the dots. Described as a "bachelor-retailer-restaurateur-journalist-sportsman," d'Estainville was in Chow's social circles and knew her peripherally. However, Tina's friends have refused to say anything about her supposed relationship with d'Estainville. He had formerly been attached to Helene Rochas — of Rochas perfumes — but after he had an affair with a man, the relationship dissolved. One of d'Estainville's friends say that he spiraled out of control afterward, going to New York and contracting AIDS there. Before he knew he was infected, d'Estainville had a number of affairs — Tina being one of them.

A post shared by @kalaia17 on Jan 20, 2018 at 2:33am PST When Tina Chow succumbed to AIDS on January 24, 1992, she died as the first woman to publicly say she had contracted the disease via heterosexual sex — an anomaly, since AIDS was then seen as something that only affected gay men. She learned that she'd been infected three years earlier; despite the fact that she and her husband were known for hosting wild parties and socializing with those known to imbibe a bit too much, Tina herself "rarely indulged in the lunacy of the times." Despite all accounts saying Tina did not abuse drugs nor sleep around, she died from AIDS anyway. One of her friends said, "Tina slept with four people in her entire life. There's a point to be made about AIDS in that respect. It's the disease that's the villain."

A post shared by Элизабет // Elizabeth (@zelenyy_devushka) on Apr 19, 2017 at 3:40am PDT Tina's affair in the late 1980s with Richard Gere cemented the end of her marriage. After meeting in Los Angeles, one of Tina's friends recalled that she was "dazzled by Richard, but she was just another notch in his belt." Another friend said that her affair with Richard was more about striking out on her own, finally, than it was about Richard Gere himself: "...She flew the coop. If it hadn't been Richard Gere, it would have been somebody else." Before her death, the media still fixated on their brief affair. A tabloid ran the headline "RICHARD GERE HONEYMOON AIDS SHOCKER: FORMER GIRLFRIEND DYING OF GAY PLAGUE." After her illness, Tina borrowed one of Gere's mountain properties as a place of refuge for some time.

A post shared by @cruzgrovestreet on Jan 24, 2018 at 8:55am PST After Richard Gere introduced Tina to the Dalai Lama and Tibetan Buddhism, she became even more enamored with Eastern ideas, including meditation and natural healing. After she contracted AIDS, she and her daughter, China Chow, went to the Himalayas to meet the esteemed religious leader. Though he told her to use Western medicine for her illness, Tina felt otherwise. Only a few months before her death, the Dalai Lama came to New York, and Tina flew from Los Angeles to see him again. He personally got Tina a private box at Madison Square Garden during his appearance there. While there, she was also seen by the Dalai Lama's personal physician before returning to Los Angeles.

A post shared by YOHANNA (@yohannasheng) on Jul 14, 2017 at 6:18pm PDT In the '70s and '80s, Tina Chow was the muse for several designers who are revered today; she not only modeled for them, but inspired them and had personal relationships with them. Giorgio Armani recalled, "Tina had an innate elegance and never needed any designer to do anything for her. Rather, she did a lot for us." Yves Saint Laurent said that Tina modeled "for her own pleasure," saying that he "really liked Tina Chow." She was also friends with designers Zandra Rhodes and Manolo Blahnik, photographer Andy Warhol, and Mick and Bianca Jagger.

A post shared by Midtown of the Mind (@midtownofthemind) on Feb 26, 2018 at 8:36pm PST Before she became sick, Tina had already become enamored with healing crystals. When she moved to California, she developed an interesting in healing teas and macrobiotics. After her diagnosis, she continued to want to heal naturally, and refused western medication: AZT and painkillers were not the way to go for Tina. Though her friends were concerned that she was eschewing western medicine, Tina thought she could handle the virus naturally. Unfortunately, she couldn't. Eventually, she got toxoplasmosis (a parasitical infection that shows no symptoms until the immune system is weakened), and died a month later on January 24, 1992.

A post shared by Kelly Sykes (@virgiegerouxvintage) on Mar 8, 2018 at 11:43am PST Designer Zandra Rhodes introduced Tina to Michael Chow, who had already experienced success as an actor and businessman. Chow had opened restaurants, a boutique, and a TV commercial company all before he met Tina when he was 33. Tina was 12 years younger than he, and Michael admitted that he was "sort of the teacher type" when it came to their dynamic. The couple was described as opposite in nearly every way. Yet for a long time (and the birth of two children), their marriage was a successful one. Nadia Ghaleb, close friend of Tina, said that while Michael used to be "genuinely open and friendly," his ego took over and he changed for the worse. Michael, however, attributes his change to learning his parents had died without his knowing it. "I got a little depressed... I was going inward. Tina was going outward." Michael became so despondent and isolated that he would watch his restaurants on a closed-circuit TV, alone in a room. Some of Tina's friends say that Michael expected her to be "Mrs. Chow" only, wanting to keep Tina "locked up in a white lacquer box like a puppet." But Tina did not want to be locked up, and Michael was not supportive or understanding in young Tina's desire to find herself. That attempt at control was the beginning of the end for the Chows.

A post shared by Steffa Johnson (@misspitts) on Jan 24, 2018 at 2:35pm PST Michael Chow may have developed the Mr. Chow restaurants, but it was arguably Tina who made them into unimaginable successes. The restaurant became a sort of "exclusive art club," where the hottest movers and shakers wanted to be seen. It was no big deal to see Jean-Michel Basquiat or Mick Jagger dining there on a weeknight.

A post shared by Michael Patterson (@mpmichaelpatterson) on Dec 31, 2017 at 10:15pm PST As Tina's marriage dissolved, she became more and more disillusioned with the life she and her husband Michael been living. Shoe aficionado and Tina's friend Manolo Blahnik remembered, "I knew deep down she was rebelling. She saw the futility, that this life was empty. She saw the shallowness of all this... she was germinating ideas and trying to be on her own creatively." Tina herself said in an interview in 1988 that losing friends to AIDS was a wake-up call. "...I felt my life slipping away while I continued to party. Many people are now paying more attention to just sticking around." Tina threw herself into charity work, Eastern medicine, and learning to drive as she asserted her freedom.

A post shared by ️️Julien Baulu (@julienbaulu) on Jan 7, 2018 at 5:02am PST Designing jewelry was more than a hobby or passing fad to Tina; the healing crystals had become a way for Tina to express her ethos. The crystals were not showcased on the jewelry; rather, they were embedded inside the bamboo structures, like invisible talismans. Tina said that she wanted someone wearing the jewelry to be healed without their knowing it. One of her most recognizable pieces was called the Kyoto bracelet, which was "...a woven bamboo bangle which encases rough rock crystals or rose quartz in their natural form which move with the wearer." Her first jewelry collection debuted in 1987, shown at Bergdorf Goodman in New York, Maxfield in Los Angeles, Ultimo in Chicago, and at Galerie Naila Monbrison in Paris. Bergdorf Goodman opened a boutique for her that quickly found success. But while Tina's creative life was flourishing, her personal life continued to worsen. Michael was fighting the divorce Tina wanted and the couple fought endlessly on how to divide up their art and belongings. In 1989, Tina was able to design a jewelry line for Calvin Klein, bringing her more professional success. Sadly, HIV had at this point begun sapping Tina's energy, and between that and her desire for perfection, the jewelry line faltered. Tina was eventually forced to sell off the rest of her jewelry stock in a sample sale.

Tina Chow truly was more than a pretty face — she was a jewelry designer, sculptor, and fashion collector who, while supporting her husband and the Mr. Chow restaurants, was also a philanthropist devoted to AIDS activism, well before she herself was diagnosed. Of course, her aesthetic was also a huge legacy — Tina made the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame in 1985. Prior to her death, Tina approached the Kyoto Costume Institute and New York's Fashion Institute of Technology to make use of the clothing collection she'd amassed over the years. Shedding her material objects was part of Tina's Eastern-style healing and the result was a special exhibit called FLAIR, a large donation to both museums, and a catalog of her collection. At Tina's insistence, the focus was on the designs themselves, not her. Tina's close friend Nadia Ghaleb later said that Tina's legacy was the lesson she left the world about HIV/AIDS. Ghaleb said Tina's message was: "Protect yourself. Be educated. Believe in yourself. Train your children. The other side of the coin is a scary place to be."

A post shared by Monika Bacher (@monikabacher) on Feb 6, 2018 at 10:16am PST Tina was a model unlike the world had yet seen. She wore her hair short and cropped, and she regularly mixed expensive high-end fashion with vintage finds. Her androgynous appearance cemented her one-of-a-kind sense of style. Perhaps this is why Karl Lagerfeld said that Tina invented minimal chic and why Kate Moss claims Tina as her style icon. Tina said that Lagerfeld "...told me what was beautiful and what was awkward and superfluous. He gave me confidence."

A post shared by Katherine Sloan (@sloankatherine) on Jan 19, 2018 at 12:10pm PST After the Lutz family moved to Japan in 1966, Tina and her sister Bonny were discovered by a modeling agent while the girls were on a business trip with their father. The sisters appeared in ads together, but it was Tina who became the face of Shiseido in 1968, when she was 18. She quickly became the most famous model in Japan. Tina quipped, "True, I was a half-breed, but they were also going in for that. They liked that look."

A post shared by David Duncan (@davidduncan247) on May 20, 2017 at 11:08am PDT Tina had her first brush with fame well before she was discovered by modeling agents. Tina was just a few months old when she and her sister appeared in I Was A Japanese War Bride, a film based on her parents's true-life story. Tina's father, Walter Lutz, met Mona Furuki when he was an American soldier stationed in Japan during and after World War II. They married in 1947 and briefly moved back to Lutz's hometown of Cleveland, Ohio, but they were back in Japan by 1966. Tina recalled that her early years in America weren't necessarily a positive experience, as being Japanese after WWII was not something that many Americans viewed kindly. Tina once said, "It was the early fifties and sixties and people believed in everything. They believed that God did bless America. The only problem was that I wasn't all-American, and there was no alternative to being all-American."