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This site is the most comprehensive on the web devoted to trans history and biography. Well over 1700 persons worthy of note, both famous and obscure, are discussed in detail, and many more are mentioned in passing.

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Showing posts with label fashion designer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fashion designer. Show all posts

21 September 2019

A Chronology of trans persons in modelling and fashion: Part II: 21st century

Part I: to 2000

Part II: 21st century


2001

Barbara Diop from Senegal worked as a model in Milan.

2003

The 2003 Cricket World Cup was held in South Africa. It was arranged that each team be led onto the field by a model, and Barbara Diop was chosen to lead the Zimbabwean team. It was only later, during the contest, that word went around about Barbara's gender history.

Yollada Nok Suanyot worked as a model and beauty queen before she became one of Thailand’s major trans activists.

2004

IVAN, Japanese-Mexican, was selected as a model of Paris Fashion Week.

2005

Camilla De Castro, São Paulo, model and porn star, killed herself.

Choi Han-bit was a contestant on Korea's Next Top Model, Cycle 3, where she ended 10th.

2006

Claudia Charriez made it to the semi-finals of America's Next Top Model hosted by Tyra Banks, but was then disqualified for being transsexual. Tyra Banks then declared Claudia to be "America's Next Top Transgender" on her talk show. One of the judges, Janice Dickinson, a former model and now running her own agency brought Claudia onto her own television reality show, made her pose as a man, but then fired her in the last episode on the grounds that they could not make any money from her.

2008

Alicia Liu had participated in 2006 in a fashion contest on Taiwan TVBS. In 2008 she became a professional model and appeared on television.

Allanah Starr and Buck Angel were modelled life-size by artist Marc Quin. Allanah also modelled for men’s magazines.

America’s Next Top Model 11 included Isis King, who had up till then been living in a homeless shelter. She asked whether she could be accepted as a girl "born in the wrong body", and came 10th overall. This led to being on the Tyra Banks show twice, the second after surgery from Marci Bowers.

2009

Erika Ervin, 6"8'/2.03m, did modeling work for Harper's Bazaar and in fashion shows in Milan, and in 2011 Amazon Eve, her performance name, became the Guinness World Record World's Tallest Professional Model.

Dominique Jackson from Tobago became a resident model for fashion designer Adrian Alicea and walked for the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week. She has also modeled for Vogue España.

Choi Han-bit,  amongst more than 1,200 applicants to the annual SBS-sponsored Super Model Contest, gained public attention by progressing through the contest's preliminary rounds. Choi's participation drew mixed reactions from internet users and other contestants, but SBS officials stated that they would view it as a "violation of human rights" to disqualify a transgender individual whose legal sex was female. As one of the contest's 32 finalists, Choi automatically qualified as a professional model. Despite this, Choi faced discrimination in the modelling industry, having been refused participation in fashion shows without any clear reason.

2010

Lea T had attempted a career as a male model, but was always being taken as female. Later Riccardo Tisci employed Lea as his personal assistant and used her as his fit model. He based his autumn/winter 2010 Givenchy collection around the idea of androgyny and Lea agreed to be featured. Later Carine Roitfeld, the editor of the French Vogue published a nude photograph of Lea with her male genitalia only partly covered. She was also featured in the Italian Vanity Fair, and was on the cover of Lurve magazine.

Kayo Satoh had been doing modelling work in Nagoya, and became an exclusive model for Tokai Spy Girl magazine. She became more famous when on 31 August 2010 she mentioned on Nippon Television's Majotachi no 22ji that she had been born male, after online rumours.

Alicia Liu was outed in 2010 when a schoolmate put a photograph of her as she had been on the internet. She called a press conference and stated: "As far as I can remember, I love being a woman. The past is not important".

Anastasia Michaelsdotter, Sweden, age 14 was scouted by several modelling agencies.

2011

Andrej Pejić, androgynous model from Bosnia via Australia, walked both the men’s and women’s shows for Jean-Paul Gaultier, was on both Schön! and Dossier Journal covers, number 18 in top 50 male models, and 98 in FHM 100 Sexiest Women.

Isis King, having completed transition, returned to America’s Next Top Model 17. She was eliminated in the third week. She then became a model for American Apparel.

Miss Sahhara, from Nigeria, walked at London Fashion Week for four seasons. She was also involved with Alternative Fashion

Liu Shi Han, had had completion surgery and became China’s first trans model.

Nikkiey Chawla, 26, India, has walked at Milan, and is in an episode of UTV Bindass’s show Emotional Atyachaar.

Valentijn de Hingh was followed by a documentary team from age 8-17. Then a model, then rejected because too tall. Now modelling again.

2012

Carol Marra was invited to participate in the Minas Trend Preview, a fashion show that happens right before Fashion Rio and São Paulo Fashion Week. This led to more work, including in Paris.

Anastasia Michaelsdotter, now 16, was walking in Milan and Paris.

24 May 2012. The trans models were pulled from a fashion show at SM Mall of Asia for Philippine Fashion Week at PFW's insistence.

2013

A petition that Carmen Carrera, alumna from RuPaul’s Drag Race, serve as a model for Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show garnered 45,000 signatures, but to no effect.

Nicole Gibson walked the runway at London Fashion Week, just days before undergoing gender confirmation surgery.

Lea T featured in Benetton campaign.

Andreja Pejic on cover of Serbian Elle.

American Apparel put out a call for transgender models.








2014

The Bangkok-based Apple Modeling Agency has launched the first transgender model division with 18 models on its books.

Ines Rau, of Algerian descent, who had comnpletion surgery at age 16, was featured in the May issue of Playboy, and then worked as a model in New York, and also appeared in Vogue Italia.

Geena Rocera, from the Philippines, then 30, having worked as a model for over a decade, came out.

Carmen Carrera on cover of Dress to Kill, profiled by CNN.

Valentijin de Hingh featured in Tom Ford's autumn campaign.










2015

Andrej Pejić, after completion surgery in late 2013, was profiled by Vogue, and also became the first-ever trans woman to sign a cosmetics contract.

Valentino Sampaio went from doing local shows and photo shoots to being in São Paulo Fashion Week, and being on the cover of Elle Brasil and L’Officiel Brasil.

December. New York Magazine/The Cut ran a cover story reminding readers that Tracey Norman, now 63, was the first black trans model. This led to Clairol welcoming her back as the face of its new “Color As Real As You Are” campaign.

Loiza Lamers won Holland’s Next Top Model 8, initially in stealth until rumours were found on the internet. She was voted the winner after disclosing her gender history.

Hari Nef walked shows during New York Fashion Week, and was signed to IMG Models.

Peche Di, from Bangkok, started Trans Models NYC.

2016

Lea T hosted the opening ceremony at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio.

Andrej Pejić, was awarded "Best International Female Model" by GQ Portugal and the following year she made history by becoming the first transgender woman to appear on the cover of GQ.

Gemma Cowling debuted at the Adelaide Fashion Festival at age 19. She claimed to be the first Australian trans model signed to agency, Estelle Asmodelle having been forgotten.

Shay Neary, from rural Pennsylavania, signed by Coverstory, becoming the first openly trans plus-size model.

2017

Valentino Sampaio was on the cover of Vogue Paris, March 2017, with the by-line: ‘Transgender beauty: How it’s shaking up the world’ and with an editorial inside.

Teddy Quinlivian, who had been discovered for Louis Vuitton in 2015, came out, and was praised by those she worked with.

Playboy featured Ines Rau, proclaiming her to be the first trans women so featured, despite her own earlier appearance, and that several others had been featured in past years.

Kami Sid, Pakistan’s first trans model.

Munroe Bergdorf was employed as the first transgender model to front a L'Oréal campaign in the UK.

Leyne Bloom, from Chicago, appeared in Vogue India.

2018

Giuliana Farfalla, who had completion surgery at 16, participated on the twelfth season of Germany's Next Topmodel, and finished in eleventh place. In January 2018, she became the first transgender model to appear on the cover of the German Playboy.

2019

Teddy Quinlivian, hired by Chanel. Listed as one of the "Top 50" models by models.com.

Geena Rocera, Playboy Playmate for August.



--------------------------------


  •  Elspeth H Brown. Work! A Queer History of Modeling. Duke University Press, 2019. The only trans models mentioned are Teri Toye and Tracey Norman.
Both Wikipedia and 10 Greatest Transgender models list persons not mentioned above. I have not included those who have not either walked a significant catwalk, been featured in a significant advertising campaign or been featured in a significant photography exhibition. Participation in beauty pageants, being a porn star, being an actor or on the internet does not count.

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18 September 2019

A Chronology of trans persons in modelling and fashion: Part I: to 2000

Part I: to 2000
Part II: 21st century


1889

L.S., a fashion model in Paris, In 1909. Aged 20, she was engaged to be married and was bothered by apparent tumours in her labia majora and attended the Hôpital Beaujon. A biopsy of the tumours resulted in them being identified as testicles. The doctors then decided that she was a 'true male', that is a masculine pseudo hermaphrodite. She was informed that her feminine 'genital aspiration', that is her engagement to her fiancé, was an act of homosexuality.

1950

Michel-Marie Poulian worked as a model in Paris, in addition to painting portraits and doing stained-glass windows for churches.

1955

Charlotte McLeod did modelling in New York and New Orleans.

1959-62

Noted Swedish photographer Christer Strömholm went to Paris and shot Jacquie Sarduy, Nana and other trans women. These were later published as  Les Amies De Place Blanche, 1983.

1960

After completion surgery in Casabalanca, April Ashley returned to England, and was able to build a career as a model; clothed, in underwear and nude. This led to a very small part in the film The Road to Hong Kong. Until November 1961 when she was outed in the Sunday People.


1964

Holly Woodlawn was briefly employed as an in-house model at Saks Fifth Avenue, new York.

1965

A person we know only as ‘Queen Elizabeth’ got a job in Davison’s department store in Atlanta as a model. One day the boss walked in as she was changing and saw her penis. She was immediately fired.

1966

Benjamin’s The Transsexual Phenomenon tells us of Betty/Suzanne who after surgery worked as a fashion model.

1970

Les Lee, performer at Le Carrousel, designed and modelled a collection of women's clothes with some success, such that the models union was able to persuade the French Government to pass a law forbidding female impersonators from working as models.

Georgia Ziadie was working as a model in New York when she met Lord Colin Campbell, married him a week later, and they were divorced the next year.

1971


Rachel Harlow, following her lead role in The Queen, 1968, and her subsequent triumph at the Cannes International Film Festival, had become the hostess at a Philadelphia nightclub named with her own name. There were also interviews, endorsements, modeling jobs and television appearances.





1974

Andy Warhol recruited models from the new transy bar Gilded Grape for his Ladies and Gentlemen (The Drag Queen Paintings) series. They were paid $50 and Andy took polaroids. They were not shown as such in the US, but in September 1975 were exhibited in Italy.

1975

Tracy Norman attended a modeling event at the Pierre Hotel in New York in 1975. There she was discovered by renowned photographer Irving Penn and booked for Vogue Italia a few days later. She was quickly featured in major advertising campaigns, Ultra Sheen and Avon Cosmetics. Clairol put her face on their dark-auburn hair dye no 512, launched that year.

1976

After the end of her public affair with John B Kelly, brother of movie-star and princess Grace Kelly, businessman and on the Philadelphia Council, Rachel Harlow dropped out of the night-life business and the gay subculture. She did continue to work as a model in New York, but avoided publicity.

1977

Potassa de la Fayette, model and star on the dance floor at Studio 54.

Robertina Manganaro was a model for the avant-garde artist, Enrico Baj.

1979

Diane Delia worked in New York as a model for Avon Cosmetics.

1980

Lauren Foster had started working as a model in Johannesburg and then Paris regularly in magazines and advertisements. However she was disqualified from the Miss South Africa Pageant. Her big break was in 1980 when she was hired by and was featured Vogue to do a 6-page fashion editorial. She was outed by the tabloid Scope, when another model sold the story, which resulted in ignorant press attention.






Essense Magazine booked Tracy Norman again for several sessions in 1980. During the last session, the hair dresser's assistant, who was from the same part of New Jersey and had been asking around trying to figure out who Tracy was, spoke to the editor, Susan Taylor, who stopped the shoot. Nobody said anything. However Tracy was never paid for the last shoot, and the pictures were never used. Work in New York dried up. There was a rumor that Taylor threatened to sue Zoli, the agency for false advertising, but the agency did not know either. Eventually a friend confirmed that her secret had gone around quickly, but still no-one said so directly.

1981

Caroline Cossey (Tula) was noted in Smirnoff Vodka’s “Well They Said Anything Could Happen” advertisement in 1981 that shows her water-skiing behind the Loch Ness Monster. She was a Page Three Girl for The Sun. This led to a small part in the James Bond film, For Your Eyes Only, 1981, and an associated article in Playboy. This led to her being outed as trans, and as a consequence lost most of her modelling contracts.

1982

Tracy Norman, seeking work in Paris, got a phone call for another model, who had returned to New York. She was offered the gig, but delayed it for two weeks while she slimmed down to a French size 6. This led to a six-month contract with Balenciaga.

1984

in New York, the new fashion sensation was the openly transgender Teri Toye, who had moved to New York from Iowa to study fashion. She was offered modeling work, especially for the cult fashion designer Stephen Sprouse, but also for Karl Lagerfeld and Jean Paul Gaultier.

Circulate magazine dedicated six pages to Lauren Foster.

Tracy Norman returned to Newark in 1984, and signed with the Grace del Marco Agency. However after a few months she was featured in an Ultra Sheen cosmetics ad, and then she was remembered. Again work dried up.

Roberta Close in Rio was becoming famous as a model and actress.

1985

Valerie Taylor, in stealth, was working as a model in Los Angeles.

Leslie Townsend, in stealth, was working as a model in Houston.

1988

Noor Talbi found work in Paris on the fashion catwalks at age 19, before she returned to Morroco and became a renowned dancer.

1993

Robertina Manganaro, encouraged by her rich husband to become a stilista, opened a studio in Paris, using her title-by marriage Comtessa.

1994

Alessandro di Sanzo, who had played a trans teenager in the films Mery per sempre, 1989. and Ragazzi fuori, 1990, was hired by the Rome fashion designer Egon von Furstenberg to walk the catwalk in a bridal dress. The Church took umbrage as she was a known transsexual.

Storme Aerison posed as a supermodel and claimed to be the sister of real supermodel Kathy Ireland. Photographers and others gave her their services in exchange for a percentage of a calendar that she said that she was producing.

1996

Estelle Asmodelle was the face of the Supermodel Agency in Australia; she was their spokesman and main model during 1996-2000.

1998

Claudia Charriez, then age 16, was already modelling.

1999

Sophia Lamar modelled for Levi’s and others.

Lee Si-Yeon first made a name as a male model, and was known for a feminine appearance and wearing women's clothing on the catwalk – the first model to do so in South Korea. Later she decided to transition, which was completed in 2007.

Before becoming the host on Taiwan's Eastern TV Auction Channel, Li Jing had worked as a model.

2000

Amanda Lepore worked extensively with photographer David LaChapelle advertising Armani and MTV. Swatch released a ‘Time tranny’ watch with her features.

Robertina Manganaro, stilista, had her first show at the Milan Pret-a-porter, which cost her a million francs of the family money.
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17 September 2017

Noor Talbi نور طلبي dancer, model, actress (1969 - )

Noureddine Talbi was born in Agadir, and was raised in Hay Mohammedi, outside Casablanca. Talbi was good at languages and also a teenage athlete and won gold medals in the 110 and 440-metre hurdles at the national level, but was more interested in dancing, which was done at first in the family setting, and in imitation of the dance sequences in Egyption films.

Talbi left for Spain at 18, and then France where she found work on the fashion catwalks. Her name was now Noor (shortened from Noureddine, a unisex name that means ‘light’ in Arabic).

Back in Morocco she founded her own fashion brand … but she still wanted to dance. She studied oriental dance under renowned choreographers. Initially she was snubbed, as are all artists initially, and there were rumours about her gender history. However she persisted, and performed at shows, charity galas, weddings.

Her sister acted as her manager – until she got married. Noor has adopted a child. She sent her mother on the Hajj in 2002, and wants to go herself.
“I am a strong believer; I pray five times a day, I am very close to God."
Noor became one of the best known oriental dancers in Morocco. She also dances the kabuki, the hindi, the woolof and the charqi. She can speak French, English, Spanish, Italian and three Arabic dialects: the Moroccan darija, the Lebanese and the Egyptian. She is 1.85m (6'1"), a full 2 metres in heels. She had surgery in Egypt.

She has starred in films, headlined weddings for the rich, and is a regular at big events such as the Marrakech International Film Festival, run after by the paparazzi. She teaches dance in Rabat and Casablanca, and has performed in the US, Australia and Japan.  However she chooses not to work with LGBT activists despite being asked.

However Morocco refuses to reissue her identity card, and state television continues to ban her.
'If I wasn't such a strong woman, religious, humanly and social, another might have killed herself'.

FR.Wikipedia       IMDB

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26 November 2015

Alexis Del Lago (1938 - ) costumier, actress, performer

Domingo Blassini Calabaza was born in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico.

As Alexis Blassini she studied at the Parsons School of Design in New York where she first appeared as female at a ball and won first prize. She further honed her skills as a fabric designer under Pauline Trigère. Alexis became known for her imitations of Marlene Dietrich.

In 1968 she met Jackie Curtis which led to Andy Warhol's Factory, where she was invited to be in one of his films but she declined. In 1972 she was in Jackie's play Amerika Cleopatra.

The next year she was on the cover of Gilles Larrain's book of photographs of interesting New Yorkers.
"We were not drag queens. What kind of limited mentality would think because you put on make-up and glitter that you must be a drag queen? Drag queen is a tiresome, demeaning, low class, vulgar term. We were performing artists. We were into self-expression and individuality. We came from all kinds of backgrounds and every side of life - rich, middle-class, black, white. This was a pansexual group that blossomed in New York City in the late 1960's and early 1970's. It was not about being gay or straight. What mattered was the expression of our selves, our souls, and OUR CLOTHES!"
Alexis was for a while an in-demand designer in Los Angeles, and has five costume and one make-up credits on movies 1978-81.

In 1983 she starred in a camp version of Tennessee Williams called Sweet Blonds of Youth.  The original, Sweet Bird of Youth, features an aging movie star Alexandra Del Lago, and from this point on, Alexis became Alexis Del Lago.   Later that year she was in the stage show Les Girls in New York with Jayne County, Holly Woodlawn and International Chrysis.

From 1986-2002 Alexis had an antique shop, The Gilded Lily.

Recently she has played in the television series, Transparent.
  • Gilles Larrain. Idols. New York: Links, 1973.
  • Jayne County & Rupert Smith. Man Enough to Be a Woman. London: Serpent's Tail, 1995: 150.
  • "Queen of Feathers" in Stephen Glass. "California Dreaming: Stephen Class's LA to Z". Los Angeles Magazine, 43,12, Dec 1998: 118.
  • Holly Brubach,. Girlfriend: Men, Women, and Drag. Random House, 1999: 128-132.
  • Craig B. Highberger. Superstar in a Housedress: The Life and Legend of Jackie Curtis. Chamberlain Bros. 2005: 9, 53, 87-90, 229.
  • James St James. "Meet the Legendary and Reclusive Alexis Del Lago". The Wow Report, September 1, 2011. http://worldofwonder.net/meet-the-legendary-and-reclusive-alexis-del-lago.
  • Craig Calman (dir) Caprice, with Alexis Del Lago. US 12 mins 2010.
IMDB

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07 February 2012

Ruthie and Eddie. dress-designer, horse trainer.

Ruthie, a male-bodied dress-designer, took up with Eddie, a female-bodied horse-trainer, in El Paso, Texas in the 1930s. The used to act up together in gay bars, and were advised that their marriage was “urgently advisable”. They loved the idea that they could wear each other’s clothes.

Pat Highsmith, who met them in 1940 on a trip home from college, wrote: “Each would have liked the other’s body for his own to put clothes on ... [T]hey were ... finding the greatest pleasure in the world in buying clothes for each other - which neither wore - and which soon were taken back and worn by each respectively - which was what they’d wanted after all.”
  • Patricia Highsmith. Cahiers, 4 September 1940. Unpublished.
  • Joan Schenkar. The Talented Miss Highsmith: The Secret Life and Serious Art of Patricia Highsmith. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2009: 136.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
We know of Ruthie and Eddie only because Pat Highsmith wrote about them in her notebooks, and then because Joan Schenkar used the anecdote in her biography of Highsmith.   How many tens of thousands are lost to history?
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23 June 2011

Dario Modon (1943 - 2020) fashion designer.

Dario graduated from the New York School of Visual Arts in 1965, and started doing drag at Halloween. He advanced to the drag balls and private parties. He was 6’2” (1.88m) and specialized in a simple black dress.

He normally went to the Stonewall Tavern on Saturdays in the late 1960s, but happened to be there on Friday June 27, 1969 when a police raid developed into a riot. He went to hospital and had six stitches.

He worked in fashion, designing lingerie and evening wear, and was one of those behind the brief paper dress of the late 1960s.

He finds that there is no longer anyone to do drag with, and has not done it since 1996. Since retirement he has become a tenants rights activist.
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13 April 2011

Olivier Theyskens (1977 - ) fashion designer.

Olivier was raised in Belgium, his father a chemical engineer. He wanted to be a girl, and was tormented by the fact that girls get to be princesses and wear dresses.
"A girl in my class told me that, in America, you can have a sex change, so I read everything there was about it, and told my friends at school that I would have this done."
His parents encouraged him to draw and by the age of seven he declared that he wanted to be a fashion designer. He diverted his energy into drawing women and fashion.
"I was very attracted to all beautiful women — actresses, singers, but it was like a girl who loves these women, not a boy. I was always imagining what it is to be a beautiful girl."
By the age of 10, his shoulders began to widen, and he saw that he would never become the beautiful woman that he dreamed of.
"Because I am a perfectionist, it put me off the idea. So I quickly became Olivier. I am very happy to be a boy and I never think about that any more".
At 18 he studied fashion design at the École Nationale Superieure des Arts Visuels de la Cambre, but dropped out to start his own label. Madonna wore one his dresses to the 1998 Academy Awards. He went on to design for Rochas and Nina Ricci and Theory. Olivier says that he is happy to live in a age when androgyny is fashionable.
"I own a few things that I designed for women, but I like looking neither like a man nor a woman, more like a fantasy boy."
Sometimes strangers address him as 'mademoiselle".
 EN.Wikipedia
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20 July 2010

Reginald de Veulle (1889 - ?) fashion designer.

Raoul Reginald de Veulle, the son of a former British vice-consul at Le Mans, was raised in Jersey. He finished his education, aged 17, at the Kensington School of Art. He picked up a few engagements in West End shows, but by his thirties, his stage career was over.

With the help of a gentleman admirer, William Cronshaw, he paid off his debts, and after a 1911 blackmail attempt on Cronshaw by the parents of another young man, Reginald had ₤500 and went to New York, where he picked up a taste for cocaine, and then Paris where he became a ladies dress designer.

He frequented social occasions where dressing as female was encouraged, and was present at a party in Maidenhead when locals started throwing stones, apparently having realized what was happening.

With the outbreak of war in 1914, de Veulle relocated to London and found work with a Mayfair costumier which specialized in theatrical work. In 1915 he fell in with show girl Billie Carleton when she modelled his creations. He also became the one who acquired her drugs and did other shopping for her.

In 1916 Defence of the Realm Regulation 40B was issued, and for the first time ever in the UK opium and cocaine, but not yet cannabis or heroin, became illegal (and remain so to this day). Also that year, Reginald married Pauline Gay, also a dress designer, who was five years older and lived a few doors away.

Billie was becoming a star. In 1918 when a US lieutenant kicked down the door of her flat in Longacre after she declined to marry him, she fled to the de Veulles. Reginald had previously bought cocaine from a couple in Limehouse, Lau Ping You and his Scottish wife, Ada, but had switched to Lionel Belcher, the film actor. Reginald hosted a cocaine party in pyjamas and nightdresses at his flat, for a group that included Billie Carleton, Belcher and others. Ada Lau Ping cooked the opium.

In September 1918 de Veulles was called up, but was declared to be unfit to be a soldier in that he was a cocaine addict. Following the Armistice in November there was a Victory Ball at the Albert Hall. Billie commanded a ‘wonderful frock’ from Reginald for the occasion. Reginald went as Harlequin. Billie followed the Ball by having friends at her flat until 5 a.m. Her maid found her dead in mid afternoon.

Ada was charged with supplying, ended up before an old-school judge and was sentenced to 5 months with hard labour. She suffered from tuberculosis and died, after release, in 1920 aged 29. Her husband, charged with possession came before a magistrate with local knowledge and was let off with a ₤10 fine.

The coroner at Billie Carleton’s inquest gave clear direction to the jury and in 15 minutes they found de Veulle guilty of manslaughter, and he was taken into custody. At his trial the next March he pleaded guilty to conspiracy with Ada Lau Ping to supply cocaine. Again the judge gave clear direction to the jury that he was also guilty of manslaughter but after 50 minutes the jury acquitted him. He was sentenced to eight months without hard labour for the conspiracy.

De Veulle is recorded as the costume designer for a 1926 stage musical, and in 1933 the Obelisk Press in Paris (whose best known book was Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer) promised ‘a book of formidable revelations’ by de Veulle, but it never appeared. Other than that Reginald de Veulle disappeared from history after his release.
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