O.Henr y Ending

André Leon Talley

A sense of self at the rainbow’s end

By Cy nthi a a dams A gangly Black kid, left in infancy to be raised by his grandmother, a domestic in Durham, became the “last great fashion editor,” declared The New York Times.

André L eon Talley, who died Januar y 18, wrote: “To my 12-year-old self, raised in the segregated South, the idea of a Black man playing any k ind of role in this world seemed an impossibilit y.”

His eyes “were star ving for beaut y.” Talley found it in high fashion.

His deat h at 73 was first announced on Inst ag r am to his 403,0 0 0 followers.

Talley, 6' 6" in his stock ing feet, became a towering fig ure in Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, W, Interview, Ebony, HG, Women’s Wear Daily, Vanity Fair and Numéro Russia.

Yet, he remained gracious. My f riend, Irene Moore, who worked for W, said, “In spite of his forbidding look, he was a really nice g uy.” Maureen Dowd remembers how “He told me about his late grandmother in Durham,” af ter she wrote about how her mother descended f rom a line of Irish maids.

B enn ie Fr a nc es Dav is wa s a st yl ish a nd proud g r a ndmot her, a lo dest ar.

Dowd intimated Talley was a hoarder, stuf fing his home with cr ystal, linens, even Tr uman Capote’s sofa. Like Capote, the legend was “prowling the world in search of glamour and beaut y, disdaining ‘dreck itude.’” Dreck itude, Talley explained, “is the lowest point in the lowest ebb.”

Talley’s touchstones remained his Southernness and beloved grandmother. T hese, Southern writer Julia Reed said, secured their f riendship until her death.

In his memoir A.L .T., André L eon Talley wrote: “At the end of the rainbow that has led me to a successf ul career in the world of fashion . . . I find that the things that are most impor tant to me are not the gossamer and gilt of the world I live in now.” His deep Southern roots f urnished “a sense of place, a sense of self.”

Born in 1948, Talley’s sense of self came early. He recalled walk ing across Duke’s campus, where Davis worked in housekeeping, and being peppered with rocks by students. (He was on his way to read Vogue.) Talley studied French and literature at N.C. Central Universit y, with graduate studies at Brown Universit y. He interned in New York for his idol, Diana Vreeland, at the Metropolitan Museum Costume Institute. She connected Talley with Andy Warhol, founder of Interview. Desinger Tom Ford kept notes, fa xes and emails f rom Talley, describing them as “works of ar t.”

Post Vogue, Ta lley exper ienced the chilling ef fect of “Nuclear Wintour,” the staf f ’s nick name for the br usque and demanding Dame A nna Wintour, the editor of Vogue por trayed in T he Devil Wears Prada.

Despite all, Talley remained the toast of New York and France, where he had lived and was awarded the Chevalier de l ’Ordre des Ar ts et des L ettres.

Yet he was tugged southward to the Carolinas for f requent honors. L ast November, N.C. Gov. Roy Cooper awarded Talley the state’s highest civilian honor, the Nor th Carolina Award (for Literature).

Since 20 0 0, Ta lley was a tr ustee at SCA D, T he Savanna h College of A r t and Desig n. He a lso was a headliner at Charlot te’s Mint Museum, curating an Oscar de la R enta ex hibition in 2018 and chair ing the 2019 Coveted Cout ure Ga la. In addition, he was a telev ision persona lit y on Amer ica’s Ne xt Top Model and ar tistic director for Zappos.

He w ist f u l ly hop e d Wintour wou ld re c onc i le w it h h im at h is de at hb e d.

On April 19, L ouis B. Gates Jr.’s popular ancestr y-tracing program, Finding Your Roots, will feature André L eon Talley.

Yet, Talley already knew who he was — a caped cr usader, fighting the good fight against dreck itude. OH

Cy nthi a A d am s is a contr ib ut ing e dit or for O.Henr y. Sh e can be re a ch e d at inkly a d am s @a ol.com.