Tina Chow

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Tina Chow (1950–January 24, 1992) was an internationally renowned model and a fashion icon in the 1980s. She was also a member of the International Best Dressed List.

Chow was born Bettina Louise Lutz; in Cleveland. Her father was of German descent, while her mother was Japanese. Her sister is actress Adelle "Bonnie" Lutz.

In 1972, Tina married Michael Chow, who owns the Mr. Chow restaurant chain. During her model career she was photographed by Cecil Beaton and Arthur Elgort.

They have two children, a daughter named China and son Maxmillian. China, born in 1974, is also a model and an actress. Maxmillian was born in 1977.

Michael and Tina Chow were among the most famous New York celebrities, making many friends among the Big Apple's art world, including Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Julian Schnabel, Mary Boone, and Henry Geldzahler. She was also a friend of Paloma Picasso and Manolo Blahnik. During an estrangement from Chow, she had affairs with Richard Gere and a bisexual French fashion arbiter Kim d’Estainville. From d’Estainville, she contracted HIV, becoming one of the first heterosexual women to become infected with the disease that would eventually end her life.

An Asian-American, Chow represented the new diversity and universalism of modern beauty, but her fashion intelligence was even greater than her beauty. One of the most important collectors of couture clothing, Chow's practised eye is still regarded as the paradigm of collecting and connoisseurship. Chow knew the great designers of her time, but demonstrated her interest in the past by choosing works of Madeleine Vionnet, Cristóbal Balenciaga and Christian Dior for her astute collection. Her initial collecting interest was Mariano Fortuny, whose 'Delphos' dresses, capes and mantles were a syncretist interpretation of East and West.

Her couture collection were sold in 1993 by Christie's in New York.

Tina died of AIDS on 24 January 1992 at the age of 41; she spent her last days at her home in Pacific Palisades, California.