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

Interview, Nov, 2003 by Andre Leon Talley

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.