Photo: iStockphoto.com
Alan Tosler is well known as a hairstylist to New York’s art stars at his Tosler Davis salon (one of New York’s Best of 2005). Turns out, though, that he can handle not just his scissors but also his corners. Earlier this month, Tosler, in his 1964 MGB, won Virginia Raceway’s Governor’s Cup, a major race in the Sportscar Vintage circuit. “It’s the polar opposite of what I do,” says Tosler, whose clients include Imitation of Christ designer Tara Subkoff and photographer Jessica Craig-Martin. “The other drivers say to me, ‘You don’t look like a hairdresser!’ I think they mean that I don’t look gay,” he says. (He’s straight. Married with two children.) Tosler’s racing schedule doesn’t faze the creatives he clips. “The last time I went in, he wasn’t there because he was in a race,” says Art Production Fund co-founder Yvonne Force, a three-year Toslerite. “But I love that. It’s an odd yet interesting part of him that I definitely appreciate — a dangerous and passionate obsession.” Tosler himself is less dramatic about it. “I feel macho when I race, and then I go back and snip artists’ hair,” he says. Not that we’re suggesting there’s anything unmacho about that.
— Emma Rosenblum
