Andre Leon Talley: the fashion guru gets to the bottom of what makes the fashion maven tick

Andre Leon Talley

ANDRE LEON TALLEY: Look at you with your gloves and your bag!

MIUCCIA PRADA: And look at my shoes! [both laugh] Anyway, this is only the second time I've done an interview, Andre, so I'm not feeling very professional. The last one was also for Interview--that time I spoke with Michelangelo Antonioni [October 1995].

ALT: Well, I'm very flattered to be in such good company!

MP: I like being on the other side of the tape-recorder and turning the journalistic tables.

ALT: I have my research tool [laughs] I have my questions, but you're the journalist here! ... Those shoes are great! Look at those shoes, with the rosette in crocodile. Look! Okay, so you start with your questions and we can do an inter-exchange.

[The door to the Interview library opens]

ELTON JOHN: Hi, Miuccia. Hi, Andre.

MP AND ALT: Elton!

EJ: I didn't know what to get you for your birthday, Miuccia, which I know is coming up, so I brought you some CDs.

ALT: Nina Simone! Oh, that's divine! That is the most perfect gift! Nina Simone, she was one of us!

EJ: Yes. But I don't want to interrupt. Bye. [leaves]

MP: So, now Andre, we must try to be serious. In reading your book, A.L T. [Villard], what touched me is the emotion. Obviously, when you were growing up, beauty was a source of emotion for you--you can tell by the way you describe your grandmother. I would like to understand more about that. Try to go deep into your memory. How do you think those emotions started?

ALT: I think that my emotional world or universe became something real very young because I was an only child in a house of women. I played with other children--I had friends on the street--but the world that touched me was a world based on the people around me. It was my grandmother and my great-grandmother. My environment was built around these two women. Because I was a child, I didn't participate in conversations with them, but I observed. I learned early on to just observe people and look at detail. One of the greatest feelings that I had that I really loved and that I really miss was when I used to see my grandmother sit at the dresser and comb her hair--she had beautiful long, silver-white hair. That was something that I loved watching her do, to take the brush and comb her hair. That struck me as something beautiful. Not that I thought her hair was beautiful. I didn't have time to think--I just loved that she was sitting there combing her hair. We didn't talk. We didn't talk much in our house. My grandmother and great-grandmother did not have conversations about philosophy or what was going on down the street. We just lived. And very early I had to connect to a world and a place within my own mind to entertain myself.

MP. Were there moments when you wanted to go out and play? Or because you had such a profound connection to the women at home, is that where you wanted to be?

ALT. I felt very protected at home. I felt very nurtured. Being the only child in the house, perhaps I was the center of attention. To me, the greatest moment was to come home from school. The smells of the kitchen always stayed with me--the steam coming off the pot on the stove, the sounds of the pot. I used to sit and watch them do the linens. They did not let me participate. When they washed the sheets, my great-grandmother would get in the yard with a big black pot and hot water and cook the sheets--they were literally cooked, boiled.

MP: You've mentioned gestures, smells, things in the home. What about outside?

ALT: Of course, there was the ritual of going to church. We prepared ourselves on Saturday by putting our clothes out. My grandmother placed her clothes on a chair in her room, and my clothes were placed at the foot of my bed.

MP: Like a religious gesture. Clearly you like elegance, and you are elegant. Do you remember the first moment in your youth that you can connect to this appreciation of elegance?

ALT: It was my grandmother going shopping with my great-grandmother. They went to shop downtown. We did not have malls. I can remember my grandmother's pair of navy-blue stilettos, with a bow, with a matching navy-blue handbag. These were church clothes, and the church clothes was where the money was spent. If there was any extravagant spending, it was on something for church, for herself or for me. I also remember the sensibility of elegance when she would take me shopping for my own clothes. She would take me to the best stores and would let me pick the things out myself with no debate. It was fine if I wanted a gold coat. Once I remember I had a beautiful gold coat made in corduroy, with a beautiful plaid lining. She probably wanted me to get a navy-blue coat, but I asked for the gold coat, so she let me buy it. I remember this distinctly, and I remember her giving me my first pair of pajamas. The label was Christian Dior. It was a licensee, of course. She bought them for my birthday. They were yellow with red paisley, and I think that's the first time I ever saw something so special and so unthinkable for my world. I loved these pajamas, and I kept them for a long, long time.

MP: Let's go back to how church influenced you.

ALT: We went to church every single Sunday, and it entailed a big preparation. Not only was there going to church, but there was the food before the church--the breakfast. Then there was getting dressed for church. We did not have a car, so we were picked up by other relatives in a big car. We lived in a city but the church was in the country. So getting in the car, going to the country was a big thing for me because I could see the beautiful road with the trees, and I used to love to be in the back of the car, looking out the window.

MP: So you were daydreaming?

ALT: Daydreaming, daydreaming, daydreaming.

MP: In church do you remember observing how people were dressed?

ALT: Oh, absolutely. I always loved to look at people in the church. I always loved the women in their hats. They always wore gloves, too. My grandmother always had the most beautiful gloves. And in the summertime they had fans or they had huge hats with big flowers. My grandmother never went to church without a hat on in her entire life.

MP: For you, was the church experience about beauty alone? Or did you connect it with sexual awareness?

ALT: No, never! I didn't think about that ever! Sex? No, no, no. It was the music and order and ritual.

MP: I can remember myself, more or less, being in the same situation. Young, in the church. But I always had some fantasies.

ALT: In church? No, not in church. In church I was always doing what I was supposed to do. Sit up, sit straight, don't talk, and don't get into trouble. Now, if I left the church, I used to get into trouble in the churchyard. You could get into trouble with the boys in the churchyard. When they had revivals, sometimes the children were not allowed inside--they would leave the church and go outside. Then you would discover sex or eroticism because people talk about it when they're young.

MP: I'm not just talking about sex, but fantasy. Did you have any kind of fantasy of living in--

ALT: --Living in another place?

MP: At home, in your mind? Did you know, for instance, a young girl who dreamed of being a princess?

ALT: No. When I discovered a new world, it was through books. The first book that ever really, really touched me was Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary. I liked the idea that Madame Bovary was a woman living in the country who saw a bigger world when she got ready to go to the ball at la Vaubyessard. She dreamed of going to Paris and having Parisian clothes. I was reading that maybe at the age of 12 or 13. I loved the fact that she was pinning pictures in her room that she'd torn out of magazines, or pictures of clothes from Paris. Although she was living in the provinces, she was dreaming of going to Paris. So that book touched me.

MP: And you didn't have any dream like that?

ALT: No. I did not have any dream to go to Paris. I used to have nightmares. [laughs] I used to have a lot of nightmares sometimes. What about you?

MP: I wanted to be old, have a good husband, and travel and dress like a princess.

ALT: Well, you do that now. You dress like a princess now. [both laugh]

MP: So what ultimately got you imagining your self in other places?

ALT: I had no imagination to go anywhere or to do anything until my teenage years, when I discovered Vogue. Vogue was the thing that opened a door to other worlds. Also when I began to take French lessons in junior high school from this extraordinary teacher named Cynthia P. Smith. She just made France and the language seem fabulous to me. Every summer in August she'd go to France on her own, travel all over, and come back to show us slides of places like Avignon. Then she would talk to us about it. For me, this was very glamorous.

MP: Did you discover Vogue by chance?

ALT: Yes, in the library at school. Vogue in those days was full of pictures of young people in England. The boutique section attracted me because it included a men's page. I loved the way the men were dressing, and I guess I tried to imitate that whole Carnaby Street look when I was a teenager. But I also loved the people in Vogue, the women, the pictures, the houses. I remember distinctly Pauline de Rothschild with her ponytail. That was a big, big influence. Vogue was my hobby, and no one in my family ever had a copy of the magazine in the house until I did. The big experience was on Sundays after church. I'd wash the dishes, walk to the white part of town through the grounds of Duke University--a great, elegant school--to the newsstand that was open on Sundays. That was my big joy. I not only bought American Vogue, bet French Vogue and The New York Times.

MP: What year was this?

ALT: 1960, 1961. Jackie and John Kennedy were in the White House. I thought Jackie Kennedy was the most extraordinary thing, maybe because of the way she talked, but also because of the way she dressed. Everyone in the South in those days, including black women, was looking to Jackie Kennedy as an image of elegance. So the little hat that only cost three dollars in the store downtown was a copy of something Jackie Kennedy was wearing. My grandmother's handbags had that same look as Jackie's, though they didn't cost the same, of course.

MP: For you, what is the difference between the beauty of rich and poor things?

ALT: It's all the same. It's all relevant to me. It all has the same intrinsic value. A beautiful Egyptian cotton sheet is as luxurious as your crocodile coat or alligator bag. I love a fabulous sable coat, but I also love a white cotton shirt. My grandmother had very simple things, but they were not kept in a precious way, just very beautifully maintained.

MP: As you started to become aware of the world, were there particular people who fascinated you?

ALT: My big, big dream was that one day I'd meet Diana Vreeland; when I did finally meet her, I knew everything about her because I'd read everything I could possibly get my hands on about her. I wanted to meet Antonio Lopez because I looked at his illustrations in The New York Times when he was an illustrator for the Times every Sunday. I wanted to meet Naomi Sims, the black model, who was in an ad on TV, in a pink Bill Blass dress.

MP: Who else influenced you as a black man?

ALT: Dr. Martin Luther King.

MP: Did you have a political consciousness at this point?

ALT: No. I had a sense of beauty. I loved [model] Pat Cleveland, I loved the pictures of Penelope Tree by Avedon, I loved Pauline de Rothschild. I loved any picture in Vogue that evoked a world that I didn't know about in Durham, North Carolina. I was very much creating my own world.

MP: So how did you finally get from North Carolina to New York?

ALT: When I left home for the first time it was to go to college at Brown University, where I'd won a scholarship. I was going to school to become a French teacher, but when I got there I met people who were studying at the Rhode Island School of Design, taking art classes to become graphic artists or illustrators. They had been to Europe; they were so sophisticated. Those people opened up a world for me too.

MP: Did you dream about love?

ALT: I dreamt about visual stunningness, visual sophistication. I wanted to meet Andy Warhol, Diane von Furstenberg, Diana Vreeland. I connected to people from reading about them. I also loved people like Jimi Hendrix, and I used to try and dress like him. I went to a concert in Georgia--the first time I ever hitchhiked--all because I'd seen a picture of him in Vogue. I loved the antique military jackets he used to wear with a scarf tied around his head. The hippies were a big influence on me as well--I went through that period, too. The first time I came to New York I went to a thrift store and bought a beautiful black-vinyl cape and a Roman gladiator belt. But I never tried to be a hippie: I didn't run around in bare feet or go to love-ins or Woodstock or any of that. Even when I went to that Hendrix concert and I slept on the ground for three days, I didn't take my shoes off.

When I first came to New York I went to Le Jardin, a great disco here--this was before Studio 54, and it was the place to go--where I first met Yves Saint Laurent, Loulou de la Falaise, Steven Meisel--I met Anna Sui outside at five o'clock in the morning. The first time I saw Bianca Jagger was in November of 1974 at the Hotel Pierre. Her entrance was extraordinary. The way she came into the room with the black stockings and the walking stick. I'd seen photographs of her, and she lived up to the images. There were no men who influenced me like that, no.

MP: What was it like to be one of the only black people in this crowd? "When you were young did you feel anything, bad or good, about being black?

ALT: No, though we were aware of the civil-rights movement, of course, in my family and in my church. It wasn't something we dwelled on, but we were aware of it. For a long time my grandmother would not allow white people to come into our house. That was her rule. The only white man who ever came into the house was the coroner. In those days the coroner had to come in person to certify that a person was really dead, so he came when my great-grandmother died. But that was just the way people were back then. I went to all-black schools.

MP: And this was never an issue for you?

ALT: No. It became a problem later when I began to think I'd been overlooked. For instance, I was given the Eugenia Sheppard Award by the Council of Fashion Designers of America this year--and I'm very proud to be recognized--but personally, I think they could've given me this award earlier in my career. But if you say that, then people say, "Oh, he carries a chip on his shoulder." But as a black person, you are aware of your position if you're the only black person in the front row of a fashion show for so long. But there's a reason I'm there. I didn't just get there because I was black in the white world, I'm in that front row because I earned it with my passion and dedication, and I think because people respect my opinion--they know there is something behind it. There is a knowledge of the culture of fashion, of style. It is not superficial. And I don't think my career has been superficial, although at times I presented a very superficial veneer to people as a way to protect myself. Ideally, we should not think of people in terms of the color of their skin. I don't think of you as an Italian: I think of you as a great designer, and a great designer can come from anywhere. But people have these boundaries, and that is a big problem.

MP: That's why you've been such an important influence for young people, the way Vreeland once was for you.

ALT: I know I am a role model for young people. And I'm happy to take that position and to assume the responsibility that comes with it because I hope I give hope to young people of any color. But I never approach people because of their color. I respect people until it's proven otherwise. I feel a responsibility to embrace my color, to embrace my roots; that's what my book is all about. It's very important to be a role model. I had great role models. Mrs. Vreeland was a greet role model. Now, was she black? No. But, you know, Cynthia Smith, my teacher, was black. And she was a great role model too.

MP: I know at a certain point in your career you became very vocal about the need for more black models in fashion shows and on magazine covers.

ALT: Sometimes when I sit and watch a fashion show I get totally wrapped up in what is in front of me, in the fantasy of it and what it might mean to the person who will be wearing the clothes. Then the show's over, and I realize there has not been one person of color on the runway!

I think it's important to balance political correctness with the feeling of the show, though Paris was a place where you never had that problem. Yves Saint Laurent, for example, used the most extraordinary black models. They were amazing! But I've had designers say to me, "We had such-and-such famous black model in, and she just didn't fit this collection."

That's crap! Now, Ralph Lauren has been one of the greatest supporters of black models. For example, he gave Tyson Beckford his whole campaign for several seasons and made him a star. Very few companies take the risk of using a black model as their image. This isn't representing the world.

MP: How do you think you managed to break through in fashion and achieve not just success, but early success?

ALT: I think it was because people who were important in the world of style, or in journalism, at Interview, or WWD [both places where Talley worked in the course of his career] saw what I was doing and how I was approaching it with enthusiasm--I almost want to say correctness, professionalism. I think what helped me was knowledge and passion and how much I read and researched. People recognized my opinions were based on something other than just some superficiality about this world of fashion. I broke through by being myself and showing that I had a point of view. My first job was with Andy Warhol here at Interview magazine--not in this building, though. Andy was a big, big catalyst for me. He took me to meet Karl Lagerfeld in 1975 in May, and Karl Lagerfeld and I became instant friends. People used to say, "What can they talk about? What does this Karl Lagerfeld have in common with Andre Leon Talley?" What we had in common was books, the 18th century, people, fashion ... It was the same with Yves Saint Laurent.

MP: Do you enjoy being different? Is it ever an issue that you're so much more elegantly dressed than almost everyone else?

ALT: Never, ever! I couldn't care less what they think of me. I am very happy with the way I dress, with my choices. Even in high school I was this way. As a teenager maybe I wanted to conform a little bit because those are very difficult years. When you're a teenager from a small town and you are different, you are victimized by people's criticism and the way they look at you. That was a problem in high school, so I tried to conform a bit; but mostly I just stayed to myself. I could not see myself being any other way. But as I came to New York I was very happy to be who I was and people related to that. When I pick things that are very over-the-top it doesn't bother me what people say. Though as you know, like you, I also like very classical English tailoring. English men have influenced me enormously.

MP: Sometimes I feel there must be something wrong with looking to the past when referring to elegance and beauty.

ALT: I don't think there's anything wrong with that! We're all obsessed with tiaras from Russia or Fred Leighton's great jewelry from the 18th and 19th century.

MP: But I don't like the idea of being nostalgic, so I force myself into what I'm trying to do now, which is to try to find a beauty that isn't nostalgic.

ALT: But I think you have to have nostalgia for the past to make something new. John Galliano does it all the time: He takes trips to Russia, to China, and then he comes back and reinterprets in his own way what he saw. You cannot understand clothing without appreciating Vionnet, and you cannot understand Vionnet and bias cut if you can't understand the Greek chiton. You cannot create a new kind of tradition without having some knowledge of where things came from, in the same way that writers or poets are inspired by what others did before them.

MP: Okay. So let's play a little game with the past. Let's look at some recent decades in terms of the changes in what is understood as being elegant. What was elegance in the '50s?

ALT: In the '50s, elegance was dictated by one place: Paris. And it was based on social strata, social position.

MP: The '60s?

ALT: Freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom, the youth, the Pill. Liberation. The miniskirt. The elegance was London, and London represented a kind of liberation of the mind and spirit. The Beatles, Mary Quant, the whole change of society. For me, the '70s was about a kind of indulgence of elegance. Elegance was Diana Ross. Elegance was the music people, but in a different way than today. Today elegance in the music world is different--in the '70s, people in music were more elegant. There's nothing more elegant than Marvin Gaye--not only his voice but the way he dressed. For me, in this country, elegance was about the culture of soul music. It's Diana Ross, James Brown, Marvin Gaye--and disco, disco, disco was a big factor. I'm not saying that disco dressing was the most important thing, but there was elegance in disco clothing. Although today you might look back and think it's horrible, but then it was fantastic. Men were very pivotal and important--John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever (1977), that white suit.

MP: The "80s?

ALT: Mass appreciation of exuberance and affluence. Flashiness, new money, people were making money. The '80s were about consumption in another way than the '50s. Your label on your back made you think you were elegant, especially if you dressed in that world of high style. Does that make sense to you what I'm saying?

MP: Absolutely--the "90s?

ALT: More probing, more contemplative, a reaction to the '80s and mass consumerism and vulgarity. In the '90s there was a return to a kind of intellectual elegance, a sensibility about clothes being a vary important part of your life, but it was a pragmatic chic.

MP: And now?

ALT: Now? Well, after September 11, 2001, fashion went into a very dark period. In the last year it's come out of that period and it's going back into what fashion should be--desire. Women are wanting to get dressed up again with more attention to a kind of glamour. Maybe it's the '40s, maybe it's the '50s, maybe it's the '30s, but it's glamorous without just being Hollywood flamboyance. And it's back again to the thing that I grew up with--the glove, the handbag, the shoe. The most important thing for a woman to me is her eyes, her hands, her feet, her ankles, her legs. Not the breast or the derriere. I mean, those are erotic zones that most people universally consider the sexy part of a woman. But it's the turn of her hand, the way a woman wears her shoes, the turn of her ankle, the pivotal way the ball of her feet move within her shoe.

MP: I think I hear the next book. [both laugh]

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Miuccia Prada's reinvention of her family company, Prada, has been a bellwether for followers of fashion.

Design icon Miuccia Prada sat down with friend and fashionista Andre Leon Talley to flex her journalism chops for the first time since 1995. Says Prada, "It's great to be on the other side." The chief designer of her eponymous label as well as of Miu Miu, Miuccia Preda was recently awarded the Andre Leon Talley Lifetime Achievement Award from the Savannah College of Art and Design.

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