REMEMBRANCES

Where to Watch André Leon Talley Being André Leon Talley

André Leon Talley had a big life, and thankfully much of it is preserved on film. 
Image may contain Human Person Andr Leon Talley Clothing Apparel and Photographer
Andre Leon Talley appears in The September Issue, 2009. by Roadside Attractions/Courtesy Everett Collection.

All featured products are independently selected by our editors. However, when you buy something through our retail links, Vanity Fair may earn an affiliate commission.

André Leon Talley, who has died at 73, was a star of many mediums. For years, he was the creative director and editor at large of Vogue magazine, and he also style-edited for Vanity Fair, which saw his taste and personality committed to print in word and picture. It’s possible, though, his being was best captured on film—the camera did love him. 

With his deep knowledge of style in culture, developed in real time under his mentor Diana Vreeland, and before Vogue during his work at Interview for Andy Warhol as well as in the Paris bureau for Women’s Wear Daily, his life was something of a connective tissue in culture. That, plus his God-given gift of gab—the phrase “holding court” is used often to describe interactions with him—made him an excellent get for documentaries. And a side effect of consuming a syllabus full of the films in which ALT appears is a decent education in fashion and fashionable culture in New York in the last several decades.

One of his earliest appearances in fashion documentaries was in one of the best of the form, Unzipped, which follows Isaac Mizrahi as he puts on a show in 1994. Talley is something of a minor character seen throughout, but he adds to the glamour, the pace of it all—he’s giving a severe look at a show in a sea of editors; he’s backstage paying respects; and most memorably of all, he’s getting his tarot cards read with John Galliano and Mizrahi in Paris (the look: zebra-print slippers paired with striped socks). 

He’s an even more passing presence in Catwalk, which came out the same year, 1995—mostly he’s shown praising Galliano rather than commenting on the film’s subject, the model Christy Turlington. But for a moment you wish the documentary was on what he was talking about, so you might live for a moment in his declarative certainty about art, fashion, money, and work. 

The September Issue. From left: Vera Wang, Andre Leon Talley, 2009.by Roadside Attractions/Courtesy Everett Collection.

You could say The September Issue, the 2009 documentary on Vogue, was Talley’s break beyond fashion into something more mainstream. In all his enormous character, he declares, “So far, it’s been a bleak streak over here in America! You know what? It’s a famine of beauty. A famine of beauty, honey! My eyes are starving for beauty!” Talley was a scene-stealer here and in the other Vogue documentary, 2016’s The First Monday in May, about the Met gala. After he passed, a clip capturing his narration of Rihanna arriving at the gala made its way around social media, all appreciating the appreciator. “I love a girl from humble beginnings who becomes a big star,” he says. “It’s like the American dream. That’s the way you do it.” All eyes may have been on that big star, but the weight of the moment was witnessed and told by ALT.

Biographic documentarians often cashed in on his social and industry expertise. He lent a talking head to Valentino: The Last Emperor (2008); Ultrasuede: In Search of Halston (2010); Westwood: Punk, Icon, Activist (2018); Very Ralph (2019); and with the style-adjacent Truman Capote, The Capote Tapes (2019). But he was most quotable in his own feature, The Gospel According to André (2017), where the likes of Fran Leibowitz, Tom Ford, Manolo Blahnik, Wintour, and Whoopi Goldberg added their own remembrances of the then living legend. “Clothes are my security blanket,” he said. “And my outfits are my armor against the world of the chiffon trenches.”

More Great Stories From Vanity Fair 

Camilla: The Controversial Figure Who May Become Queen
— Ghislaine Maxwell’s Guilty Verdict Comes Into Question
Caitríona Balfe’s Celtic Conquest, From Outlander to Belfast
— Can a New Perfume Rekindle Eroticism?
The Queen Is Mourning Two of Her Ladies-in-Waiting
— 21 Wardrobe Winners Inspired by And Just Like That…
— The Life and Death of Rosanne Boyland, a Capitol Rioter
— From the Archive: Princesses Behaving Badly
— Sign up for “The Buyline” to receive a curated list of fashion, books, and beauty buys in one weekly newsletter.