I haven’t watched a single interview or read a single article about André Leon Talley—before or after he passed away—that didn’t include the phrase “larger than life,” as though it were a mandatory descriptor. It seems as though many people missed the most extraordinary thing about him: he was an artist.

I, too, missed it for years. I misjudged him. When I saw him interviewing celebrities on the red carpet in his gorgeous flowing caftans or presiding over photoshoots with his personalized Louis Vuitton case perched on his lap, I assumed he was one of those fashion types—superficial, vapid, cruel. I hadn’t yet come to understand the way the industry used his persona as a caricature to reinforce their own idea of who they wanted him to be.

When the documentary The Gospel According to André came out in 2017, it challenged everything I thought I knew about him. The film painted a picture of a sensitive and brilliant man who was aching for so many things and whose creative life was filled with obstacles.

After earning his MFA in French literature from Brown—and a stint as the receptionist at Andy Warhol’s Interview Magazine arranged by his beloved mentor Diana Vreeland—he was named the Paris bureau chief for Women’s Wear Daily. The European designers gravitated to him immediately because of his fluency in French and his encyclopedic knowledge of fashion and art. Back at home, the industry accused him of having had an affair with Vreeland, which is absurd for many reasons, not least of which the fact that Vreeland was 45 years his senior and that Talley was queer. They later gossiped that, surely, he must be sleeping with all of the designers in France. What else could possibly explain his success and influence?

This was the 80s, when there were no Black men in the front rows of fashion shows, much less a 6’6,” queer, Black dandy. Talley stuck out in a sea of white faces, and the fashion industry was happy to take advantage of that hypervisibility throughout his career when it suited their purposes, which is to say when it was fabulous. But behind the scenes, he was paid essentially half of what his white counterparts earned, and his creative vision was often dismissed.

While working at Vogue under editor-in-chief Grace Mirabella, Talley suggested publishing a historical photo of an African man wearing feathers in his hair as a visual and cultural antecedent to the feathers that couturier Saint Laurent was showing that season. When he presented the image to Mirabella, she replied, “‘What have I done to deserve this?!’ Talley recounted. “She was fearful of these feathers on this African man. And she was not going to have it in her pages in Vogue. And I went back to Anna Wintour's office [for support] and she said, ‘André, move on.’”

When discussing Talley’s career for the documentary about his life, Wintour reflected, "I think Andre had some ambivalence about talking about race.” We now know, from his memoir, that during Wintour’s tenure as editor-in-chief Talley presented her with a long list of ideas for his February column to which she responded, ‘André, Vogue is not here to run a column about your ideas on Black History Month.’

Something I loved most about Talley was his firm belief that style was more important than fashion—a surprising opinion coming from one of fashion’s most influential ambassadors—which told me that he cared more about personal expression than about whatever the industry had agreed was the trend that season.

I’ve always drawn parallels between Talley’s life and that of fashion photographer Bill Cunningham (who felt the same way that Talley did about style vs. fashion). Both men devoted themselves to the pursuit of beauty at the expense of all other things. Both were raised in deeply religious households—Talley by his grandmother in North Carolina, Cunningham by his parents in Boston—which caused them to be tightlipped about their sexuality.¹ Both died with limited financial means, despite having worked their entire lives in an industry dripping with wealth. Neither had ever fallen in love. Both were men of sweetness, vision, and integrity. It is an imperfect comparison, because Cunningham never faced the racism and homophobia that Talley did, but I see them both as important cultural figures who gave far more to us than they ever received in return.

And though Talley’s contribution is immeasurable—the careers of Olivier Rousteing, Virgil Abloh, Jason Bolden, Law Roach, and Edward Enninful wouldn’t have been possible had Talley not preceded them—it’s hard not to recognize the part of his story that will be familiar to many artists: sometimes the world we love with all of our hearts doesn’t love us back.

So, as a tribute to Mr. Talley, let’s all do something this week.

Let’s all send a quick note of appreciation to an artist whose work we admire. Maybe we can return to them some of the love that they’ve put into the world for us, so that they can feel it while they’re still here.

André Leon Talley 1948-2022

If you’d like to listen to more about ALT, here’s a tribute to him on NPR’s It’s Been a Minute With Sam Sanders.