As reported a few hours ago by the TMZ website, André Leon Talley died this Tuesday in a hospital in White Plains (New York) for reasons that are still unknown. With more than 50 years of career behind him, Talley wrote for several prestigious fashion publications, such as Women’s Wear Daily, W The The New York Times, but it was his work on the American edition of Vogue what made him famous to the general public. He was the magazine’s chief information officer, its creative director and one of Anna Wintour’s confidants, becoming the first African-American to hold a prominent position in the fashion industry.
Born in 1948 in Washington DC, he grew up with his grandmother in North Carolina, studied French literature at Brown University and in 1974 was discovered by Diana Vreeland, a famous director of Vogue Y Harper’s Bazaar, with whom I work in the fashion exhibitions of the Metropolitan Museum of New York. He later met Andy Warhol and began his career at the artist’s magazine, Interview. In 2020, already away from the media spotlight, he published a memoir In the trenches of fashion, in which he reviewed his years in the profession and recounted his efforts to break down racial barriers in fashion.
(Latest news. There will be an update shortly)