André Leon Talley — the former Vogue magazine editor and fashion legend — passed away at a hospital in New York on Tuesday 18th January at age 73 of complications related to COVID.
His career highlights are as follows:
- He began as a receptionist at Interview magazine under Andy Warhol.
- He was the Paris bureau chief of Women’s Wear Daily.
- He then worked his way up the ranks at Vogue, eventually assuming the positions of news director, creative director and finally, editor-at-large, working alongside editor-in-chief Anna Wintour. He ended up leaving Vogue officially in 2013, though he continued to contribute to Vogue in varying capacities.
- He worked as a stylist for former US President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama.
ALT was born on 16th October 1948. He majored in French studies at North Carolina Central University and received a master’s from Brown University, where he wrote his thesis on the influence of black women in French literature and paintings.
Having been raised in the segregated South of the US — and being the first black editor of Vogue — ALT was particularly vocal about the fashion industry’s lack of diversity, and he worked diligently to promote more black models. He reflects on his experience in his memoir ‘The Chiffon Trenches’:
“To my 12-year-old self, raised in the segregated South, the idea of a Black man playing any kind of role in this world seemed an impossibility… To think of where I’ve come from, where we’ve come from, in my lifetime, and where we are today, is amazing. And, yet, of course, we still have so far to go.”
Speaking on his untimely death, his friend Darren Walker (president of the Ford Foundation) said:
“André Leon Talley was a singular force in an industry that he had to fight to be recognised in… [He had] a deep academic understanding of fashion and design.”
ALT was a true trailblazer. He was an incredibly bold, vibrant and larger-than-life personality who showed love to all — and everyone loved him right back. He famously declared:
“I love people – it is not the fashion, it is the people in fashion I love”
It is with a heavy heart that we bid you farewell, André. Thank you for everything. Rest in Peace.
