André Leon Talley was an American fashion journalist, stylist, creative director, and editor-at-large for Vogue magazine from October 16, 1948 to January 18, 2022. From 1983 to 1987, he served as the magazine’s fashion news director, then as the first African-American male creative director from 1988 to 1995, and last as editor-at-large from 1998 to 2013. He was recognised for promoting young designers and advocating for diversity in the fashion business, and his signature look included capes, kaftans, and robes. Talley also served on the America’s Next Top Model judging panel (from Cycle 14 to Cycle 17).
André Leon Talley, the flamboyant former Vogue editor, died at the age of 73. Talley was a guy of great declarations, opulent capes, and friends in design studios from New York to Paris, including Marc Jacobs, Tom Ford, Diane von Furstenberg, Karl Lagerfeld, and others. Many of his friends in the fashion industry and beyond flocked to social media to express their condolences after learning of his death from a heart attack late last night, and a pattern developed. Talley was the industry’s biggest champion and booster, the first editor backstage, fast with encouraging comments or a course correction, as another Vogue staffer once labelled him. His zeal was unquenchable.
He also co-wrote a book with Richard Bernstein and written three novels, including the memoir The Chiffon Trenches, which was a New York Times Best Seller. In 2013, Talley was the editor-at-large of Numéro Russia before leaving owing to Russia’s anti-LGBT policies. He also worked at Interview, Women’s Wear Daily, W, Ebony, and The New York Times with Andy Warhol. During his stay in the White House, he worked as a stylist for US President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama, as well as dressing Melania Trump for her 2005 wedding to Donald Trump.
He got the Chevalier of l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres honour for arts and letters from France in 2020, and the North Carolina Award for his contribution to writing the following year. He was the subject of the documentary The Gospel According to André, directed by Kate Novack, and was included in the documentaries The First Monday in May and The September Issue.
André Leon Talley Early life and education
Talley was born in Washington, D.C., on October 16, 1948, to Alma Ruth Davis and taxi driver William C. Talley. One of his grandfathers was a sharecropper, at the very least. His parents abandoned him, leaving him to be raised by Binnie Francis Davis, a cleaning lady at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. “I miss her virtually every day,” Talley said after her death, crediting her with providing him a “knowledge of luxury.”
He grew up in the Jim Crow South, where segregation was the rule of law. “For a long time, my grandma refused to let white people into our house,” he explained. That had been her rule. The coroner was the only white man who ever entered the residence.” His grandmother fostered his early interest in fashion, which he further developed when he discovered Vogue magazine at a local library when he was nine or ten years old.
Talley was voted 45th among the “50 Most Powerful Gay Men and Women in America” by Out magazine in 2007. When asked about his sexual orientation during an interview on The Wendy Williams Show on May 29, 2018, Talley said, “No, I’m not heterosexual; I’m saying I’m fluid in my sexuality, dear.”
Talley was a devout Christian who worshipped at Harlem’s Abyssinian Baptist Church. Church attendance, according to fashion critic Robin Givhan, is one of the main factors that “influences the way he perceives beauty and emphasises grace.”
