If you like us, REALLY like us, please click the “Like” button at the end of this post!
Also, please scroll to the end of this post for other ways to financially support us and We Are Speaking with our books and courses.
We appreciate your support!
Today’s Black History WOW!
André Leon Talley was born on October 16, 1949, in Durham, North Carolina, and grew up with a passion for fashion and a keen eye for style. He attended North Carolina Central University, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in French literature in 1970. He won a scholarship to Brown University, where he earned a Master of Arts in French literature in 1972. At Brown, he wrote a thesis on the influence of black women on Charles Baudelaire and initially planned to teach French.
Talley's career in the fashion world began in the 1970s when he apprenticed, unpaid, for Diana Vreeland at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1974. The Vogue editor arranged for Talley to work at Andy Warhol's Factory and Interview magazine for $50 a week. He later wrote for Women's Wear Daily, becoming its Paris bureau chief, and W, from 1975 through 1980. He also worked for The New York Times, Ebony, and other publications before finally landing at Vogue, where he worked as the fashion news director from 1983 to 1987 and, later, as the magazine's first African-American male creative director from 1988 to 1995, and finally as Vogue’s first African American editor-at-large.
In 2008, Talley advised the Obama family on fashion and styled Michelle Obama for her first Vogue cover, introducing her to Taiwanese-Canadian designer Jason Wu, who went on to make several dresses for the First Lady, including her inaugural gown. Talley later paired with designers Tracy Reese and Rachel Roy, and singer-actress Jennifer Hudson.
Throughout his career, Talley championed diversity and inclusion in the fashion world. He was a vocal advocate for designers of color and plus-size models, pushing for greater representation of Black models in the industry.
From March 2010 to December 2011, Talley served on the judging panel for America's Next Top Model. From 2013 to 2014, he served as international editor of Numéro Russia, joining the team shortly after the magazine launched in March 2013, but he resigned after 12 issues due to anti-LGBT laws in Russia.
He released The Chiffon Trenches: A Memoir on May 19, 2020. In it, he chronicles his start in New York City in the 1970s, his tumultuous relationship with Wintour, and his experiences with racism in the fashion world. It became a New York Times Best Seller.
His image has become synonymous with the capes, robes, and kaftans he often wore, becoming his signature fashion items. In 2023 in her Super Bowl Halftime Show performance, Rihanna paid tribute to Talley by wearing a full-length red Alaïa puffer similar to the Norma Kamali Speeling Bag coat he wore.
André Leon Talley died from complications of a heart attack and COVID-19 at a hospital in White Plains, New York, on January 18, 2022, at the age of 73.
Today In Black History
In 1712, Pennsylvania passed a law that prevented the importation of slaves into the colony by imposing a tax on any new slaves.
In 1892, Homer A. Plessy refused to move to a segregated railroad coach in New Orleans, initiating the eventual 1896 “separate but equal” Supreme Court decision of Plessy v Ferguson.
In 1892, Black inventor G.J. Sampson received a patent for a clothes dryer.
In 1958, Berry Gordy, Jr. founded Tamla Records, the precursor to Motown Records in Detroit, Michigan.
In 1998, 49-year-old Black pedestrian James R. Byrd, Jr. was brutally murdered by three white men as he walked home from a party in Jasper, TX. He was beaten and dismembered as he was dragged three miles chained to a truck and then dumped in a Black cemetery. The murderers were charged with a racial hate crime.
Our paid subscribers are encouraged to discuss this post in our W.A.S. Chat Community.
You are also welcome to view “We Are Speaking” in Substack Notes. You can also read other Substack publications without subscribing to them when you join Notes.
This post is free to read for three days. To have access 365/24/7 to our full archive, comment on our posts, and financially support “We Are Speaking” for no more than $5 per month, please subscribe at the paid level.
