Peggy Dillard-Toone, a legendary supermodel and artist, contentedly tucked away, is a radical homesteader who staked her claim here in Harlem 30 years ago with a vigilante elegance that held her neighborhood together. Along with her husband of 28 years, artist Lloyd Toone, and a changing cast of friends, she has restored a home that is an ongoing experiment in design, art, and imaginative living.
Before Peggy finished college at Pratt, she had graced two Vogue Magazine covers and one Mademoiselle, besides spending her junior and senior years flying back and forth to Japan as the first lingerie model for Vassarette in Tokyo.
It all seemed to flow effortlessly, however Peggy was very deliberate in her decision-making throughout life. She attributes her choices to her foundation in Greenville, South Carolina, as the 13th child born in her family. And she knew early on that she would pursue a design career in New York City. The guiding spirit in Peggy’s life is unmistakably her mother, who, succeeding her grandfather, had been a successful tailor, and too, was a visionary and very forward thinking. Peggy learned to sew her own clothes and had her first business at the age of 13 sewing for her plus-sized music teacher, and her teacher’s family. She was into the Butterick and Vogue patterns and eventually began revising and creating her own patterns. In hindsight, Peggy realized that as her mother sewed for many people in town, from hats and clothes, to upholstery, curtains, and home furnishings, they, as children, worked alongside cutting and sewing, which were major items for kids to produce. But, they did. Peggy learned to make custom items like pleated curtains, corded bedspreads and ruffled pieces, seemingly very difficult tasks, however their mother never made them feel like anything was too big for them to do. 
Although a career in fashion and design seemed the natural progression after Peggy finished high school at age 15, she initially came to New York’s Pratt Institute on a four-year scholarship for architectural design. Peggy became a model as the result of being a student, as she explains. Her career took off in a very uncanny way, without a portfolio or an agent. Preparing for shows as a student, she would visit many of the showrooms in the fashion district, and the designers would ask her to do their shows. That is where the press and Vogue first discovered Peggy. She said that it was at one of the shows that Vogue asked to see her book, “I had to go back to the dorm and get a friend of mine, James Shrugs. He was a freshman at Pratt, and he did my entire portfolio in black and white. I wore a tam and a turtleneck and Vogue loved it.”Along with husband ,partner, artist, Lloyd Toone , Peggy works as a fine artist, and manages productions for Indasa Fine Arts Gallery in Harlem, N.Y. and their online art business IndasaFineArts.com
Their business was recognized by the Spartanburg Chamber of Commerce as the minority business of the year 2005.
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