American designer and writer Todd Oldham was BOTD in 1961. Born in Corpus Christi, Texas to a middle-class family, he had an itinerant childhood, due to his father’s job as a computer engineer, at one point living in Iran. He developed an early interest in fashion, designing his first clothes when he was 15. After completing high school, he moved to Dallas, Texas, where he worked in the alterations department for Polo Ralph Lauren, selling his first clothing collection to department store Neiman Marcus when he was 24. In 1988, he moved to New York City with his professional and romantic partner Tony Longoria, working as a designer for fashion house Escada and establishing his own fashion label in 1989. His maverick career included a home accessories line for general goods store Target, a furniture line for La-Z-Boy and working as creative director for Old Navy Stores. An early adopter of mass media, he hosted a fashion segment on MTV show House of Style throughout the 1990s, significantly enhancing his public persona and brand recognition. In 1999, he announced his departure from fashion design, donating his archive to the Rhode Island School of Design Museum (who hosted a retrospective of his work in 2016). He continues to design furniture, hotels and curate exhibitions, and has published a series of books on style, and a monograph of filmmaker John Waters. His book Queer Threads: Crafting Identity and Community won the 2018 Stonewall Book Award for non-fiction.