Andre Leon Talley 'Mr. Fashion: from Durham, N.C., to the Center of an Elite World

Being Andre Leon Talley is pretty heady stuff:

As one of fashion's most astute and colorful pundits, Talley is the highly influential editor-at-large at Vogue magazine and is as revered as the famous designers and celebrities he writes about. In fashion circles, all you need to say is "Andre" because, like music diva Madonna, there is only one.

The fashion world is a highly competitive, slippery slope that trades on the novelty of designers and personalities who go in and out of style. But for more than 30 years, Talley has managed to stay current, relevant and always in demand. He is all about substance--as well as style. "Andre doesn't exist because someone decided that he should," attests Bethann Hardison, a talent agent who herself trailblazed as a top Black runway model in the 1970s. "Andre was slow-baked. He has been on a long journey. He has been finely educated--academically as well as socially. He became a fashion guru by working hard, learning and fine-tuning who he is."

The paparazzi swoon when the 6-foot-7, confident and flamboyant Talley sweeps into a fashion show dressed in a beige, custom-made, alligator coat by Prada. He's often accompanied by Vogue editor-in-chief, Anna Wintour, one of the most powerful women in fashion, alongside whom he has worked for 20 years. In his authoritative "Life with Andre" monthly column in Vogue, he holds court on all things fashionable, including international museum exhibits, stylish personalities and cultural events.

Talley was Vogue's ambassador in Moscow in 2004, after the magazine launched a Russian edition in 1998. He advised Melania Trump to wear a Christian Dior couture gown for her wedding to Donald Trump. He steered Jennifer Hudson, Hollywood's storybook sensation, into red carpet-worthy gowns. (Vera Wang for the Golden Globes. Oscar de la Renta for the Academy Awards.) The TV fashion police resoundingly nixed Hudson's Oscar look, but Talley was unbowed: "I still stand behind that gold bolero. I loved the way she looked."

Talley, 58, is highly regarded by designers such as Michael Kors. Says Kors: "Andre has an intense love of fashion and style. He brings exuberance to the job--plus he has an encyclopedic memory of fashion history."

Designer Vera Wang, who has known Talley for 30 years, relies on his critical eye to review her collections before runway shows. "Andre is like my conscience," she says. "He is an unusually cultivated man--and an artist in his own right."

Talley takes his responsibility seriously. "I consider half of my job is 'coffee, tea or me?'" explains Talley. "'Can I help you?' I always want to encourage." He also takes fashion's most promising talents under his wing, regardless of race. Says Talley: "I don't see color." Yet he has been a longtime champion of countless Black designers, including Stephen Burrows, Patrick Robinson, Tracy Reese and Rachel Roy. He's also been a supporter of models and fashion students trying to break onto the big stage.

"Andre's support of me and of people of color means so much because it carries real weight," says Tracy Reese.

Talley, a native of Durham, N.C., is the son of a taxi driver. He was raised by his grandmother, Bennie Francis Davis, then a domestic servant for White families. His upbringing in the segregated South during the 1950s was steeped in education, church and old-school values, and he first became hooked on fashion as a teenager when he crossed into the White section of town to buy Vogue each month. His first fashion role model was his grandmother Davis, a chic and proud lady whose sole indulgence was going to the hairdresser every two weeks. Her impeccable Sunday wardrobe was modest, well-chosen and, Talley adds, "of the highest quality she could afford," consisting of well-cut black suits and cashmere sweaters, accessorized with hats and white gloves. "My childhood was, by anyone's standards, a rich one," he wrote in his 2003 memoir, "ALT."

Perhaps even more than fashion, Talley is passionate about all aspects of education and fine culture, which went a long way toward helping him penetrate the elitist world of high fashion. After earning his master's degree in French literature at Brown University, he had originally planned to become a French teacher. But instead, he headed to New York in 1975, where he took his first job earning $50 a week answering the phone at the studio of pop artist Andy Warhol, the founder of Interview magazine. Before long, Talley was behind a typewriter, penning celebrity profiles. In 1977 he became a reporter at Women's Wear Daily, the influential fashion trade publication where he rose to become Paris bureau chief in the 1980s. He then took an unexpected but invaluable turn for two years as an unpaid apprentice to the legendary Diana Vreeland, who once edited Vogue, but at that time (in the 1980s) was director of the Costume Institute at New York's Metropolitan Museum.