A.L.T Larger Than Words
When you think about the term opening the door…
By Keren Beya
Born: October 16, 1948, in Washington, D.C.,
Talley was born in Washington, D.C., on October 16, 1948, to Alma Ruth Davis and taxi driver William C. Talley. However, he was reared by his grandmother, Bennie Frances Davis, who worked as a cleaning lady at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. Davis had a profound influence on Talley, and he attributes his exceptional sense of style and luxury to her. He grew up in the Jim Crow South era, where segregation was the rule of law. He went to the library in the white section of town as an adolescent where he discovered Vogue Magazines and quickly became a passionate reader.
Talley graduated at Hillside High School in 1966, and North Carolina Central University, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in French literature in 1970. In 1972, he received a scholarship to Brown University, where he earned a Master of Arts in French literature. He authored a thesis on the influence of Black women on Charles Baudelaire while at Brown. In 1974, he had the opportunity to apprenticed for Diana Vreeland at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, thanks to student connections he formed Brown University.
He had initially intended to teach French, however, the fashion industry called. He began his career at Women’s Wear Daily, where he rose through the ranks to become the Paris bureau head from 1975 to 1980, and later, he worked as Andy Warhol’s assistant. In 1983, he became the most notable African American in the world of fashion design. He worked briefly for The New York Times and other newspapers before joining Vogue in 1983 as editor-at- large and subsequently as the first African American male Creative Director from 1988 to 1995. In 1984, he co-wrote MegaStar with Richard Bernstein, a publication comprising photographs of notable personalities, which included an introduction by Paloma Picasso.
Tally made it his mission to persuade renowned designers to include more black models in their fashion shows. In 1995, he left Vogue to work for W in Paris, after which he returned to Vogue in 1998 as editor-at-large until 2013, when he left to pursue another editorial venture. He had been a member of the Savannah College of Art and Design’s Board of Trustees since 2000. In 2003, Talley’s autobiography, A.L.T.: A Memoir, was published by Villard, and he went on to win the Eugenia Sheppard Award for Fashion Journalism later that year. The book’s message, according to Publishers Weekly, is that of “style transcends race, class, and time.” Two years later, he published A.L.T. 365+, an art monograph with images and captions from one year of Talley’s life, designed by creative director Sam Shahid.
He was bestowed the Honorary Doctor of Humanities by Savannah College of Art and Design in 2008. Talley was also said to have given fashion advice to the Obama family in 2008, introducing Michelle Obama to Taiwanese Canadian designer Jason Wu, from whom she purchased numerous garments, including her inaugural gown. Talley had a cameo appearance as a Vogue executive in the 2008 feature film, Sex, and the City. He was also a board trustee at Savannah College of Art & Design, where he received an honorary doctorate in 2008. In 2009, he appeared in the film Valentino: The Last Emperor, as well as The September Issue, a behind-the-scenes documentary about Vogue’s September 2007 issue.
From March 2010 through the end of 2011, Talley was a member of America’s Next Top Model judging panel. In October 2011, the André Leon Talley Gallery opened in the College’s Museum of Art and the André Leon Talley Lifetime Achievement Accolade, an annual award awarded to up-and-coming fashionistas, was launched at the same time. He was the international editor of Numéro Russia from 2013 to 2014, joining the team shortly after the magazine’s inception in March 2013 but resigning after 12 issues. Tally later joined Zappos Couture, a web-based distributor of couture garments and other goods, as Artistic Director in January 2014. He worked with Zappos on re-designing the website, which featured a fresh look and original content.
In January 2017, he co-blogged the Trump inauguration with New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd. Talley began his radio show on Sirius XM satellite station Radio Andy in April of that year, the show focused primarily on fashion and pop culture. In 2016, Kate Novack directed The Gospel According to André, with Talley as the subject of a documentary film. It premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in September 2016 and was distributed in the United States on May 25, 2018. It was made available on Disney’s Hulu in 2020.
On May 19, 2020, he released The Chiffon Trenches: A Memoir. In it, he describes his early days in New York City in the 1970s, his turbulent relationship with Wintour, and his encounters with prejudice in the fashion industry. The book went on to become a New York Times Best Seller. Talley received the French Republic’s Cjevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2020, and the North Carolina Governor’s Award for Literature in 2021.
André Leon Talley was a key figure in the fashion world and undoubtedly the most prominent African American in the high-stakes world of designer fashion. He was known among fashionistas for his flamboyant, often custom-made outfits that accentuated his six-foot-seven-inch frame, as well as his booming baritone. Talley died on January 18th, 2022, in New York, at the age of 7, after a series of health struggles. Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation, announced his death.