André Leon Talley

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

André Leon Talley
Andre Leon Talley at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival.jpg
Talley at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival
Born
André Leon Talley

(1948-10-16) October 16, 1948 (age 72)
Washington, D.C., U.S.
EducationNorth Carolina Central University (BA)
Brown University (MA)
OccupationFashion journalist
Years active1974–present
Websitetwitter.com/officialalt

André Leon Talley (born October 16, 1948) is an American fashion journalist, and the former creative director and American editor-at-large of Vogue magazine.[1] He was the magazine's fashion news director from 1983 to 1987 and then its creative director from 1988 to 1995. He has authored three books, including two memoirs, and co-authored a book with Richard Bernstein.

Early life and education[]

Talley was born on October 16, 1948, in Washington, D.C.,[2] the son of Alma Ruth Davis and William C. Talley, a taxi driver. At least one of his grandfathers was a sharecropper. His parents left him with his maternal grandmother, Binnie Francis Davis, who worked as a cleaning lady at Duke University, in Durham, North Carolina. She raised him, with Talley saying he was given from her an "understanding of luxury,"[3] and for whom he has expressed, since her death, "I miss her almost everyday."[4]

He grew up in the Jim Crow era South, where segregation defined social boundaries. He has said, "For a long time my grandmother would not allow white people to come into our house. That was her rule. The only white man who ever came into the house was the coroner."[5] His love for fashion was cultivated at an early age by her and his discovery of Vogue magazine, which he first found in the local library[6] at the age of nine or 10.[7]

Talley was educated at Hillside High School, graduating in 1966, and North Carolina Central University, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in French Literature in 1970. He won a scholarship to Brown University,[4] where he earned a Master of Arts degree in French Literature in 1972.[8] At Brown, he wrote a thesis on the influence of black women on Charles Baudelaire[8] and initially planned to teach French.[9]

Career[]

Through the student connections he made in Providence, Rhode Island, he apprenticed, unpaid, for Diana Vreeland at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1974.[4] So impressed by his skills, the Vogue editor connected Talley up with a job at Andy Warhol's Factory and Interview magazine[4] for $50 a week. He went on to work at Women’s Wear Daily, becoming its Paris bureau chief,[4] and W, from 1975 through 1980. He also worked for The New York Times and other publications before finally landing at Vogue, where he worked as the Fashion News Director from 1983 to 1987 and then as Creative Director from 1988 to 1995. He pushed top designers to have more African-American models in their shows.[8] In 1984 he co-wrote with Richard Bernstein the book MegaStar, with an introduction by Paloma Picasso, which includes portraits of celebrities.[10] He left Vogue and moved to Paris in 1995 to work for W, and served as contributing editor at Vogue. In 1998, he returned to Vogue as the editor-at-large until his departure in 2013[8] to pursue another editorial venture.[7]

In 2003, he published an autobiography entitled A.L.T.: A Memoir, published by Villard in 2003.[11] According to Publishers Weekly, the message delivered by the book is that "Style transcends race, class, and time."[12] Two years later he authored A.L.T. 365+, an art monograph designed by art director Sam Shahid. 365 features photos and captions from one year of Talley's life.[13]

In 2008, Talley advised the Obama family on fashion, introducing Michelle Obama to the Taiwanese-Canadian designer Jason Wu, from whom she bought several dresses, including her inaugural gown. Talley's famous recent pairings have been with designers Tracy Reese, Rachel Roy, and singer/actress Jennifer Hudson.

From March 2010 to December 2011, Talley served on the judging panel for America's Next Top Model (from Cycle 14 to Cycle 17).[14] From 2013 to 2014, he served as international editor of Numéro Russia, joining the team shortly after the magazine launched in March 2013 but resigned after 12 issues. He has been a member of the Board of Trustees of the Savannah College of Art and Design since 1995.[15]

In January 2017, he live-blogged the Trump inauguration with New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd.[4] In April of that year, Talley began hosting his own radio show principally concerned with fashion and pop culture on Sirius XM satellite station Radio Andy.

Talley is the subject of a documentary film, , directed by Kate Novack,[16] which was screened in September 2016 at the Toronto Film Festival and was released in the US on May 25, 2018.[17][18] Reviewing the film, Variety said: "The documentary is a deeply loving, frequently beautiful testament to the former Vogue editor, who rose from humble beginnings in North Carolina to become arguably the high fashion world’s first major African-American tastemaker, as well as the type of multi-lingual, Russian-lit-citing public intellectual who is perfectly at ease gossiping on TV with Wendy Williams."[3] It was available on Disney's Hulu in 2020.

He released The Chiffon Trenches: A Memoir on May 19, 2020. In it, he discusses getting his start in New York City in the 1970s, his tumultuous relationship with Wintour, and his experiences with racism in the fashion world.[9]

Image[]

In the mid-2000s, Anna Wintour initiated an intervention to get Talley to lose weight.[16] As seen on The Oprah Winfrey Show, he eventually lost a great deal of weight, and was eating more healthfully. He continued again at the Duke Diet and Fitness Center in the late 2010s.[4]

In 2007, Talley was ranked 45th in Out magazine's "50 Most Powerful Gay Men and Women in America".[19]

Personal life[]

During his May 29, 2018 appearance on The Wendy Williams Show, when asked about his sexual orientation, Talley stated, "No, I'm not heterosexual; I'm saying I'm fluid in my sexuality, darling."[20]

Books[]

Talley fielding questions at New York book signing, June 10, 2013
  • With Richard Bernstein, MegaStar, with an introduction by Paloma Picasso, Indigo Books, 1984, ISBN 978-0-394-62305-4
  • A.L.T.: A Memoir, Villard, 2003, ISBN 0-375-50828-7
  • A.L.T. 365+, designed by Sam Shahid, powerHouse Books, 2005, ISBN 1-57687-240-8
  • The Chiffon Trenches: A Memoir, Ballantine, 2020[9]

Filmography[]

Year Title Role Notes
2008 Sex and the City Himself Film role (cameo)
2008 Valentino: The Last Emperor Himself Film role (cameo)
2006 "Say Somethin'" Himself Mariah Carey's music video (cameo)
2009 The September Issue Himself Documentary
2015 Empire Himself Television role (episode: "The Devils Are Here") (cameo)
2016 First Monday in May Himself Documentary
2017 Manolo: The Boy Who Made Shoes for Lizards Himself Documentary
2018 The Gospel According to André Himself Documentary

Awards[]

References[]

  1. ^ "André Leon Talley's Next Act". The New York Times. May 24, 2018. Archived from the original on May 24, 2018. Retrieved May 24, 2018.
  2. ^ Beatty, Paul (2008). Hokum: An anthology of African-American humor. New York: Bloomsbury. p. 257. ISBN 978-1596917163. Archived from the original on September 21, 2020. Retrieved February 7, 2016.
  3. ^ Jump up to: a b Barker, Andrew (September 9, 2017), "Film Review: 'The Gospel According to Andre'" Archived September 21, 2020, at the Wayback Machine, Variety.
  4. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g The Gospel According to André, dir. Kate Novack, 2018
  5. ^ "The New Man of The People". NYpost.com. November 10, 2010. Archived from the original on September 21, 2020. Retrieved November 19, 2015.
  6. ^ Talley, Andre (2003). Andre Leon Talley Biography.
  7. ^ Jump up to: a b Gross, Terry (May 31, 2018), "For 'Vogue' Titan André Leon Talley, Fashion Was A 'Gateway To The World'" Archived October 18, 2018, at the Wayback Machine, Fresh Air, NPR.
  8. ^ Jump up to: a b c d "Archived copy". Archived from the original on September 21, 2020. Retrieved August 3, 2020.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  9. ^ Jump up to: a b c Carroll, Rebecca. "Anna Wintour Is Not the Star of André Leon Talley's Memoir. He Is". The New York Times. Archived from the original on September 21, 2020. Retrieved May 18, 2020.
  10. ^ Bernstein, Richard; André Leon Talley (1984). Megastar. New York: Indigo Books. ISBN 978-0-394-62305-4.
  11. ^ Talley, André Leon (April 8, 2003). A.L.T. A Memoir. Villard. p. 256. ISBN 0-375-50828-7.
  12. ^ Review of A.L.T.: A Memoir Archived September 21, 2020, at the Wayback Machine, Publishers Weekly, March 10, 2003.
  13. ^ Talley, André Leon (July 19, 2005). A.L.T. 365+. powerHouse Books. p. 240. ISBN 1-57687-240-8.
  14. ^ "'Top Model' to get major makeover with Kimora Lee Simmons as new judge". Daily News. New York. November 12, 2009. Archived from the original on November 14, 2009. Retrieved November 12, 2009.
  15. ^ Steigrad, Alexandra (March 13, 2014). "André Leon Talley to Exit Numéro Russia". WWD.com. Archived from the original on September 21, 2020.
  16. ^ Jump up to: a b Brockes, Emma (May 6, 2018), ("Interview: 'Vogue was my escape hatch!'" Archived October 18, 2018, at the Wayback Machine, The Guardian.
  17. ^ Boucher, Vincent (August 30, 2017). "Andre Leon Talley on the Influence of His Grandmother, Diana Vreeland in New Doc". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on September 21, 2020. Retrieved November 30, 2017.
  18. ^ "The Gospel According to André". Rotten Tomatoes. Archived from the original on May 10, 2018. Retrieved June 3, 2018.
  19. ^ Oxfield, Jesse; Michael Idov (March 4, 2007), "‘Out’ Ranks the Top 50 Gays; Anderson Is No. 2", New York Magazine. Archived June 6, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
  20. ^ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OdI54rXzc0 Archived September 21, 2020, at the Wayback Machine (6:13)
  21. ^ Dartis, Michelle, "Talley, André Leon (1949-)" Archived September 21, 2020, at the Wayback Machine, BlackPast.org.

External links[]

Retrieved from ""