Lil' Blonde Darling: Teri Toye!

Blonde Beauty Icon Teri Toye

 Behold a NYC legend, kids! Teri Toye was a fashion model, an "it-girl", a downtown nightlife personality and a muse to pop art designer Stephen Sprouse. She also happened to be transgendered! She moved to NYC to study art and fashion but quickly became a fixture on the early 80's downtown club scene and happened into a modeling career by chance. After befriending Stephen Sprouse and walking in his show, she caused a sensation in the fashion world, signed with CLICK Models and walked for everyone from Chanel to Thierry Mugler to Jean Paul Gaultier. By 1987 she suddenly vanished from the NYC scene, with her surprising disappearance becoming somewhat of an urban legend. She only recently resurfaced for the 2009 launch of the retrospective coffee table book, The Stephen Sprouse Book. Teri is quite the pioneer, as very few transgendered women have found any sort of fame or success in mainstream culture. She was able to achieve what Candy Darling had wanted to achieve a mere 10 years earlier: to have a legitimate and respected career. It's no small feat, even today.

POP!

FACE

I ♥ chartreuse almost as much as I ♥ NY

Beat it!

FOIL!

YES! Why would you want to wear anything else?!

with photographer Steven Meisel

I love an unacceptable cut out.

le CLICK

I hope she saved all her clothes

with Janice Dickinson

pout

Woman in Red

with Debbie Harry at The Stephen Sprouse Book launch party, 2009