“It is with great sadness we announce the passing of André Leon Talley on January 18, 2022, in New York,” a statement on his Instagram read. The cause of death has not been disclosed. Talley’s death was confirmed to Rolling Stone by his literary agent, David Vigliano. and became a pop-culture and fashion icon, died Tuesday at the age of 73. © 2023 NYP Holdings, Inc.André Leon Talley, who served as an editor-at-large at Vogue in the U.S. WireImageīy 2018 he was living alone in White Plains, broke and facing eviction, dropped by nearly all his fancy friends, shocked at how reptilian and transactional that world was. Still, it was bracing to read dispatches from Talley in exile, no longer in Anna Wintour’s favor, cast out, he said, for being “too old, too overweight, too uncool.” Anna Wintour and Andre Leon Talley had a strange friendship - some even referred to it as one of the greatest frenemy relationships. To cite a maxim Gunn helped popularize: One day you’re in. He’s being fed grapes and cubes of cheese one by one, like a bird in a nest.” Take this story from Tim Gunn, who once found Talley in a green room, “a translucent barber’s bib over André and he’s reclining, arms at his sides. He was the outsider who became an insider, as much of a creation as anyone else in that realm: speaking with an indeterminate accent, issuing diktats and commands with the authority of a four-star general, name-dropping and lolling about in a state of unsustainable hedonism.Īt some point along the way, Talley couldn’t find the line between camp and crudity. Yet Talley could play that game, too, buying into this ugly business of beautiful people, reveling in his own role as gatekeeper. “Incidents when people were harmful and mean-spirited and terrifying.” In 2018, Talley was struggling financially, facing eviction and didn’t have many friends to turn to. “There’ve been some very cruel and racist moments in my life in the world of fashion,” Talley told the New York Times in 2018.

Fashion, he thought, would never leave him. Whatever his medical complications, he also died of a broken heart.

When I heard last night that Talley had died, just aged 73, my first thought was his exile from fashion surely contributed. All died by suicide, Blow and McQueen particularly brutalized by the industry. Legendary stylist Isabella Blow, designers Alexander McQueen, L’Wren Scott and Kate Spade - they weren’t so lucky. When she goes, so goes the demimonde - and good riddance.Īs Tom Ford told the Financial Times in 2016: “Fashion is evil.” Ford was once a casualty, but at least he made it out alive, now working on his own terms. Only Anna Wintour, Talley’s greatest frenemy, is left. With André Leon Talley’s passing comes the death, too, of the illusory world of high fashion. Walls close in on Alec Baldwin as his gun lie falls apart New witness statements show Brad Pitt may be the villain of the story Sheryl Sandberg has finally been exposed as a fake feministĭoesn't 'ring' true: Impossible to take Ben Affleck's privacy pleas seriously after extravagant J.Lo wedding Toddler and tiara: Meghan Markle STILL throwing tantrums about royal family

Andre leon talley