Business

Influential Fashion Journalist André Leon Talley Dies at 73

NEW YORK — André Leon Talley, the towering former creative director and editor at large of Vogue magazine, has died. He was aged 73.

Talley’s literary agent David Vigliano confirmed Talley’s death to USA Today late Tuesday, but no additional details were immediately available.

Talley was an influential fashion journalist who worked at Women’s Wear Daily and Vogue and was a regular in the front row of fashion shows in New York and Europe. Tall at 6-foot-6 inches, Talley was imposing wherever he went. His stature and influence over the fashion industry, as well as his bold look, made him an intimidating figure.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

In a 2013 Vanity Fair spread titled “The Eyeful Tower,” Talley was described as “perhaps the industry’s most important link to the past.” Designer Tom Ford told the magazine Talley was “one of the last great fashion editors who has an incredible sense of fashion history. … He can see through everything you do to the original reference, predict what was on your inspiration board.”

Designer Diane von Furstenberg praised Talley on Instagram, writing: “no one saw the world in a more glamorous way than you did … no one was grander and more soulful than you were.”

Andre Leon Talley
AP Photo/Seth Wenig André Leon Talley, a former editor at large for Vogue magazine, speaks to a reporter at the opening of the “Black Fashion Designers” exhibit at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2016.

In his 2003 memoir, “A.L.T.: A Memoir,” Talley focused on two of the most important women in his life: his maternal grandmother, Bennie Frances Davis and the late fashion editor Diana Vreeland.

“Bennie Frances Davis may have looked like a typical, African American domestic worker to many of the people who saw her on an ordinary day, but I, who could see her soul, could also see her secret: that even while she wore a hair net and work clothes to scrub toilets and floors, she wore an invisible diadem,” he wrote.

Vogue was his first love. Talley met Vogue while attending Duke University. There, his grandmother maintained the dorms. Talley would often walk to campus to get Vogue in his youth.

Talley was also a familiar figure to TV audiences, serving as a judge on “America’s Top Model” and appearing on “Sex and the City” and “Empire.”

Talley was born in Durham, North Carolina. She worked various jobs until arriving in New York in 1970s. Soon, she met Vreeland and began a friendship which lasted till her death in 1989.

Talley was a Washington, D.C. and Maryland park ranger. He told The Associated Press about the slaves who constructed Fort Washington.

After stints with Interview magazine and Women’s Wear Daily, Talley was hired at Vogue in 1983 by Editor in Chief Anna Wintour and was appointed its creative director in 1988.

Obit Andre Leon Talley
AP Photo/David Goldman Fashion designer Diane Van Furstenburg, left, and Vogue editor at large André Leon Talley attend a fashion show on Sept. 14, 2010, in New York.

Talley released another memoir in 2020, “The Chiffon Trenches,” that included gossipy behind-the-scenes tales about Wintour and other fashion figures like the late designer Karl Lagerfeld.

Of all the elements of a person’s apparel, Talley considered shoes to be most important.

“You can tell everything about a person by what he puts on his feet,” Talley told the AP.

“If it’s a man and you can see the reflection of his face on the top of his black shoes, it means they’ve been polished to perfection. … If it’s a woman and she’s wearing shoes that hurt … well, shoes that hurt are very fashionable!”

Talley’s death was first reported by celebrity website TMZ.

Tags

Related Articles

Back to top button