Beautiful Lies
When Andre Leon Talley died in January 2022, there were countless tributes from the fashion world: editors, designers, models and everyone in between. As the fact of his passing sunk in rather unsavoury parts of his life started surfacing. Unbeknowst to outsiders, painting a much more grim picture of Anna Wintour’s longtime editor and a celebrated authority in fashion.
In the final years of his life, the morbidly obese Talley was draped in luxurious capes meant to hide all those failed attempts at losing weight. In a cruelly ironic way he ended up a victim of the very system he championed. Based on the worship of youth and virtually unattainable beauty standards both physically and financially. It had a disastrous effect on countless young women that grew up frustrated for not looking like a supermodel.
Perpetuated through influential TV shows like Sex&The City this created archetypes that oversimplified female identity by shoving it into four categories: the sexpot, the career girl, the hopeless romantic and the party girl. Most of the time it looked like a fashion editorial with a storyline which culminated in the movies that were all about brand name-dropping and celebrity cameos. That is, when they weren’t blatantly racist and islamophobic.
The final, monumental slap in Talley’s face was calling people he elevated his “peers”. He had lived for too long in a bubble where there’s no such thing as a true friendship. Maybe he was just too blinded by it and ignored the truth. Those people are too rich to be anyone’s real friends since their social circles are based on mutual interests and agendas. However, he grew up the American south that was back then still plagued by racial segregation and discovered the fabled world of luxury in the local library where he found a copy of Vogue magazine. He couldn’t have known he’d one day be a part of it. Otherwise he’d have had changed his mind and chased a better dream.
One that wouldn’t have led him to dying in a villa in White Plains where he faced eviction, disappointed and abandoned by the high society that once used to indulge his whims. True “peers” don’t let you sink that low and throw you out as soon as there’s a fresh new face that will attract more followers and advertisers. Which is more or less exactly what happened. Talley was in reality nothing more than the personal assistant of white elites in everything but title.
He was never really a part of the story. Rather like a bewildered friend who managed to sneak into an exclusive party and seduce a millionaire heiress. I’m not sure if he was aware of just how disposable he was because the ability to quickly replace is essential to fashion. When Wintour hired Liza Koshy, a YouTube influencer, to host the Met Gala in 2018 instead of Talley, the two drifted apart. He took it as an insult even though he built a career feeding the monster that eventually devoured him too.
Everything in fashion is temporary. His case speaks volumes on the lack inclusivity in America’s highest social circles. The globally admired American dream proved to be an illusion since that’s what it always was. There’s only so high you can climb on the social ladder if you don’t live in a compound on Martha’s Vineyard or an inherited duplex overlooking Central Park. He learned it the hard way. It’s a bit like Britain at the Eurovision Song Contest: they’re at the bottom of the voting barrel yet they’re guaranteed a spot in the finals because of the money they pump into the event. Life is a bitch and there’s hardly anything you can do about it.
To outsiders, Talley was indeed living the dream: hanging out with Andy Warhol and Bianca Jagger at Studio 54, shiny extravaganzas at the Met and front-row seats at fashion week while rubbing shoulders with Wintour and A-list celebrities. On the other hand, people of color in the industry still had a long way to go before they were recognized as something more than staff. There might be quite a few African-American supermodels since Naomi Campbell yet it’s too early to call it mission accomplished. Money buys access to doors that would otherwise be closed for you.
In the so-called American Gilded Age, some were denied inclusion in the close-knit circle of fabulously rich families because they belonged to “new money” everybody loved to hate. One of them was Alva Vanderbildt. She had to prove herself worthy of it as well. Snubbed by the elite, it all changed at her housewarming party in 1883 attended by very wealthy people that could only be rivaled by Truman Capote’s legendary Black and White Ball at the Plaza Hotel in 1966. But if you can build a chateau in the midst of Manhattan it shouldn’t be too much of a stretch to wow stuffy old-fashioned snobs with an abundant overdose of their own favourite drug. Money.
You might say these two can’t possibly be compared since Talley seemed dependant on grace and favour of those like Vanderbildt. A naive toy of the rich and famous that mistook fame for fortune since the two aren’t always synonymous. Fame is like love. It feels good but it won’t pay your bills unless you turn it into an investment. And then there’s also the aspect of queer culture that ocassionally treats asexual, effeminate people like him as an embarassing joke. There’s no middle ground: for some, he’s merely an overdressed, fat queen and for others an entertaining primadonna. He even filmed a pretentious documentary the name of which perfectly sums up his overinflated sense of importance: The Gospel According to Andre. For the most part it was an exposé on his career and influence on fashion.
The last thing we need is an another self-aggrandizing stylist losing control over his own ego. Now that he’s gone, it might be an opportunity to reflect on the role of fashion in our lives, consciously or not. Miranda Priestly delivered a brilliant monologue on the connection between society, economy and the “clearance bins” of high street brands. Every link in the chain is equally important and a testimony of hideous practices of third world child labor manufacturing status symbols of the jet set. And all that for a fraction of the selling price in gilded shop windows of Harrod’s and Galeries Lafayette. Priestly might be a fictional character but her words were anything but. However I still refuse to buy vegan leather. Along with puffy down jackets and cargo pants. There are some sartorial lines even I’m unwilling to cross.
Wealth must be quite a lonely place. You’re scared and distrusting of strangers, constantly on alert they might need a favor or money instead of having genuine interest in you. It comes with the territory. The perfect litmus paper of loyalty for people who suddenly have distant relatives coming out of the woodwork to invite themselves back into your life. If they were ever in it in the first place. I don’t think Anna Wintour is a racist. She’s merely a professional focusing on things and people that benefit her brand. Talley’s tragedy is the fact that he never built a private life of his own outside the world of runways and celebrities.
He convinced himself that he’s entitled to privilege only to find out it comes with an expiration date. But he was still just the son of a taxi driver from the South. You can try to reinvent yourself but in the end your roots define your insecurities and vulnerabilities. In that sense he was doomed from the start. The American dream convinced him, like many of us as well that background and skincolor don’t define the width of your wings. A lie we all bought into because Hollywood sold it to us. Wrapped up in bells and whistles, it was easy to get distracted from the truth.
Sometimes you have to swallow your pride and principles to catch a bit of that stardust that leads into a parallel universe where money is no object and life looks like a party straight from The Great Gatsby. If you make it, you’ll see the other side too: addiction, divorces, tax frauds and abuse of all kinds. Provided you don’t ignore what’s in plain sight. If you make it out unscathed, count your blessings and your money. And run away while you still can. Talley’s fall into the gutters from the throne that was never his in the first place is a cautionary tale of what happens when you mistake illusion for the truth. And when you live beyond your means without a plan B. For better or worse, it’s a wake-up call you can’t snooze.
