André Leon Talley Drags Anna Wintour

[Benn98]

*Circles May 19 with red marker*



André Leon Talley’s Book to Be Released Earlier Than Planned
After grabbing headlines in recent days for a controversial memoir, André Leon Talley’s publisher is moving up the release date to May 19.

By Rosemary Feitelberg on April 29, 2020

ANDRÉ ON DEMAND: After André Leon Talley kicked off a firestorm of publicity last week with his memoir “The Chiffon Trenches: A Memoir,” the book’s publisher Ballantine has moved up the release date to May 19 from September.

Originally slated to hit stores this week, last month the book’s debut was shelved until the fall due to the COVID-19 shutdown. Recent media coverage — much of which described in detail the great divide between Talley and his former boss Anna Wintour — upended that plan, after consumers’ interest ramped up. Copies of Talley’s tome had already been scheduled to be printed this month. A spokeswoman for Penguin Random House, of which Ballantine is a division, declined to comment about projected sales Tuesday.

Talley’s decades-long career in fashion also included volunteering at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, and posts at Women’s Wear Daily, Vanity Fair and Andy Warhol’s Factory. By his account, Talley has dealt with ageism, racism and weight discrimination. “People have done things to me that I have forgiven them for. There are things in the book that you can’t imagine — the racism, everything. You don’t even understand how much I’ve gone through to get to be 71 years old and I hope that I will live a long time,” Talley said.

The book is dedicated to his “dear friend” Lee Radziwill and his pastor at the Abyssinian Baptist Church, Calvin O. Betts 3rd. Talley addressed childhood traumas and weight issues in the memoir. He told WWD last week, “When I sit back and think of the riches of my life, I just wanted to share some of the great moments of my life as well as the struggles.”

In recent days, though, the Talley-related headlines have been all about his severed ties with Wintour and his blistering portrayal of her. Talley said he sent Wintour, who is American Vogue’s editor in chief, Condé Nast’s U.S. artistic director and global content adviser, a galley of the book in January and made a few changes that she had requested.

Her potential reaction to the book was a question that his Ballantine editor Pamela Cannon posed last summer to Talley. In last week’s interview, Talley said his response was, “‘Yeah, why wouldn’t she?’”

Talley said he had no plans to reach out to Wintour. “The ball is in her court,” he said Friday.

”I think people are riveted by this because Anna Wintour is on everybody’s brain waves because she is a very powerful human being. Perhaps they are perplexed or mystified by me, my relationship to Vogue, how did I land at Vogue, why am I not at Vogue now, what’s going on…,” he said. “People are so fascinated by this because she is a very, very powerful woman as with ‘The Devil Wears Prada.’ She managed to be more than an icon. She is a world figure.”

WWD

 

[Benn98]

Via Fashionweekdaily:

In other ALT memoir news, the former Vogue editor’s new tell-all also provides personal and private insights into the early life of the late Karl Lagerfeld. According to Talley, Lagerfeld’s mother “strapped him to the bed to stop him from eating” and used to shame her son for being fat, telling him when he was just eight years old that he looked “like an old ****.” Talley too suffered abuse as a child and says it was one of the things that bonded the two men. The two had a falling out though when Talley suggested in front of a group of friends that Lagerfeld do a joint exhibition with photographer Deborah Turbeville. According to Talley, Lagerfeld’s ego would not allow him to support another photographer in that way and as a result, Lagerfeld took Talley off the guest list for all the Chanel shows and banished him from his circle.

 

[GivenchyAddict]

Is he not capable of telling his story without including other people's ones? If Karl decided to not tell anything about his life or at least to tell the information he wanted the world to know, how a "friend" had the nerve to do it?

I found him really pathetic.

 

[tigerrouge]

I wonder if Andre has anything to say about Edward, the not-very-young and not-that-thin current editor of UK Vogue, or would that be too much of a reminder about what sort of serious position you can carve out for yourself in the fashion world if you work at it.

 

[magsaddict]

Probably never. I only remember a reject from couture ed by McDean with Maggie Rizer from 2002
And how many times Zac Posen and other not worth remembering young talents she supported appeared and where they are now

I love his work but that's Thakoon to an extent, I think because he was immortalised in The September Issue as Anna's next great talent she was supporting, it's incredibly difficult to overcome that, even as much as it is helpful.

Interesting that Rucci, who was given an exhibition and lifetime achievement award from SCAD, which ALT is heavily involved in, would be so vocal. But why the need? What's Anna done? Fashion is a business. As for ALT, his knowledge of fashion may be great, but I recently rewatched his Oxford Union address, and the large focus of his speech was talking about all his fabulous aristocratic friends in Europe. Which is fine, I love that stuff, but if Rucci says Anna is 'meaningless' and 'has no substance', what does he think of Andre? At least Anna has interests outside fashion.

 

[vogue28]

Anna is bound to be furious with all the media attention over this, especially since it came to light after the 'A Common Thread' initiative was launched, the Vogue Global Conversations streaming event and Vogue's special for June/July on the pandemic - which have all been overshadowed by Andre's tell-all.

I do wonder what Anna requested be left out the book, if all this was allowed in the book? Yet none of this should come as a surprise to anyone who follows Wintour or Vogue, because rumors like this have been circulating for years - and Anna has done just fine.

 

[dodencebt]

I do wonder what Anna requested be left out the book, if all this was allowed in the book? Yet none of this should come as a surprise to anyone who follows Wintour or Vogue, because rumors like this have been circulating for years - and Anna has done just fine.

Mentions of her family and Bee’s wedding, from what I understand.

 

[Xone]

Another “pearl” from Mr Talley

https://pagesix.com/2020/04/30/andre-leon-talleys-memoir-takes-aim-at-conde-nast-editors/

 

[Benn98]

Rolled my eyes reading that Page Six article because yet again ALT's line of thinking is flawed. Just because the editors didn't thank him for the article doesn't mean they didn't appreciate it. I do agree that Anna should have, at least as a courtesy, because it was content which he wrote for another publication and in particular to praise Vogue.

I feel for the guy when it comes to his past though. Based on everything released over the past few days I would say that he's definitely doing a lot of things for the wrong reasons and he does need some form of counseling. Otherwise this need for validation and acceptance, coupled with the sexual abuse which I suspect spilled over to his adult relationships will always be sort of omnipresent. No amount of documentaries and tell-alls will deal with that.

 

[Benn98]

Alexandra Shulman's AirMail (Graydon Carter) review of the book:

“As I saw it, I was meant to be by Anna Wintour at all times and encourage her visions,” says Leon Talley, photographed here by Pari Dukovic with the editor at a Chanel runway show in 2013.

BY ALEXANDRA SHULMAN
READING TIME: 8 MINUTES

THE CHIFFON TRENCHESby André Leon Talley
For more than two decades, there was a familiar pairing in the front rows of fashion shows in New York, Milan, Paris, and occasionally London: André Leon Talley, an imposing figure swathed in voluminous gowns, wedged next to the physically diminutive, hugely powerful Anna Wintour. Fashion shows are generally tight on seating space, and Wintour’s restrained slimness compensated for Leon Talley’s mass. Both characters had deliberately eye-catching style. Like H.M. the Queen, they could always be identified at some distance. Visibility is a premium quality in fashion, which is about how things look. The problem comes when how things look gets confused with how things really are.

The Man of Mode
André Leon Talley, or A.L.T. as he is sometimes known, is a man whose life has been largely concerned with appearances, of every kind. His new memoir, The Chiffon Trenches, is a story of someone—and in this he is not unusual in the fashion pantheon—who seems to exist primarily in the reflected glory of others, and in particular of Karl Lagerfeld and Anna Wintour. His raison d’être was bestowed by them. And then removed.

For anyone who judges the worth of a memoir by how prepared the writer is to dish on those around them, The Chiffon Trenches will not disappoint. So much so that now there is already a massive furor about how A.L.T. has treated his former boss in his telling of events. Did he or didn’t he intend to trash her? After reading, it would seem hard to conclude that he is innocent of that accusation.

His new memoir, The Chiffon Trenches, is a story of someone—and in this he is not unusual in the fashion pantheon—who seems to exist primarily in the reflected glory of others, and in particular of Karl Lagerfeld and Anna Wintour.
Memoirs come in all shapes and sizes, just like fashion personalities. This one is a bumper edition of grievances about and glimpses into the personal lives of those who encountered the writer. Anna Wintour is one of the few famous people whom Leon Talley spent a great deal of time with who is still alive, and so the focus has fallen on his treatment of her. She has in public remained graciously silent. In private I would expect she has had much to say. The Daily Mail ran a piece last weekend describing The Chiffon Trenches as “a memoir so dripping with venom it’s left her glossy world agog.” WWD quotes Leon Talley as saying, “I am not sitting here crying, saying, ‘Woe is me. Anna Wintour has ditched me and pushed me to the curb,’ which I feel she has done.”

Allusions of Grandeur
It is, naturally, a mesmerizing read, and one which a reader unfamiliar with this febrile world might well imagine to be fiction. A fact Leon Talley acknowledged in his previous memoir, A.L.T.: “The truth,” he wrote then, “is that I live on a relatively grand scale, because that’s the way fashion is.... It’s fickle, it’s flamboyant and it’s fabulous.”

That he succeeds in becoming a player in this community is testament both to his early talent and to the drive that enabled him to forge a life for himself a million miles from the tobacco town of Durham, North Carolina, where he was brought up by his grandmother Mama and great-grandmother China. The local library was a haven from his family’s chief occupation of churchgoing, and it was there he discovered glamour in the pages of Vogue: Truman Capote’s famous Black and White Ball; Gloria Vanderbilt’s Fortuny silk dresses, coiled like snakes. A world where, he imagined, “bad things never happened.”

The local library was a haven from his family’s chief occupation of churchgoing, and it was there he discovered glamour in the pages of Vogue.
Driven by a fascination with all things French, he gained a full scholarship to Brown University to study for a master’s in French literature, spending his minimal cash on YSL towels and wearing a shade of Estée Lauder deep-grape makeup, finished off with Vaseline on his temples. This was when he wasn’t in full Kabuki maquillage, emulating one of his role models, Diana Vreeland. He immersed himself in Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Verlaine, and the values of the Belle Époque, like many fashionable aesthetes.

International Relations
For all the inherent elitism of the fashion world, its major figures have often come from relatively humble backgrounds, driven by determination and skill: Ralph Lauren, Yves Saint Laurent, the Versaces. Leon Talley not only traveled far from the world of his upbringing, but his story is hugely influenced by how he feels about what it has meant to be a person of color. Throughout these pages, no matter how glamorous his days and nights, how famous the milieu, how well paid he might be, the issue of race is as visible as the color of his skin.

André Leon Talley at a benefit at Christie’s in New York, 1979.
In 1978, while he was Paris correspondent for Women’s Wear Daily—then the most influential fashion publication in the world—he wrote an ecstatic review of a Givenchy couture show, where all the models were black. Immediately, he heard a rumor that he had stolen Yves Saint Laurent’s sketches and sold them to Givenchy. “This was the kind of racism I experienced in fashion. Subtle, casual jabs that white people inherently make toward people of color…. A black man is always getting accused of doing something egregious.”

The story says just as much about the pettiness of that community as it does about race. Leon Talley’s continual feeling of being hard done by—a feeling that permeates the book—is not just to do with the issues around race. His habit of getting suckered into and remaining in emotionally unhealthy relationships was certainly a contributory factor.

Kaiser Time
One such relationship was with Karl Lagerfeld, whom he met while interviewing the then Chloé designer for Interview magazine, wearing “khaki Bermuda shorts, a pin-striped shirt and aviator glasses from Halston, knee socks, and moccasin penny loafers.” (The author’s recall of his own outfit on any given day is nothing short of miraculous.) The pair hit it off, and Karl led him into his bedroom, not for any sexual encounter but to throw him a couple of crêpe de Chine shirts in pale green and peony pink. For a young man on the lower rungs of the fashion ladder, this was major. Far more important than sex.

And so began a friendship of sorts that lasted 40 years. Daily telephone calls, meals at La Coupole, being flown in on the Concorde for holidays at Lagerfeld’s country house, sharing Lagerfeld’s hand-wash laundry service. When Karl whistles, Leon Talley hurls himself over the hurdles wherever on the globe he might be.

The pair hit it off, and Karl led him into his bedroom, not for any sexual encounter but to throw him a couple of crêpe de Chine shirts in pale green and peony pink.
One day, Karl chucks him out of the gilded circle, just as he did many people who fluttered in the heady thermals of his atmosphere. Was it really, as Leon Talley imagines, because he made the mistake of suggesting that Lagerfeld, himself a photographer, should bankroll an exhibition of the recently deceased Deborah Turbeville’s photographs? Who knows? At any rate, he finds himself removed from the Chanel Christmas list in 2013.

The Coldest Wintour on Record
In its way, the high-fashion world was, and still is, as small-town in its feuds and allegiances as the community where André Leon Talley was brought up. He loves his clothes, cares deeply about the creative process, and is a brilliant cheerleader for talent. But overriding this is his concern with his and others’ standing and clout.

When, in 1988, Anna Wintour became editor in chief of American Vogue, she appointed him to the hugely important role of creative director, even though it seems he didn’t have a clue about what the job might involve. “In the world of fashion, things go unspoken,” he explains. “As I saw it, I was meant to be by Anna Wintour at all times and encourage her visions.”

Unsurprisingly, this vague arrangement didn’t pan out, and so she suggested he move back to Paris in a role that essentially cast him as her eyes and ears, with an all-expenses-paid lifestyle, including use of Lagerfeld’s preferred laundry service. “But my schedule was set around Anna Wintour’s fittings,” he writes, while much of his day-to-day role was to hang around with Lagerfeld and keep him on side with the magazine. Such was Lagerfeld’s omnipotence at Chanel that, for example, he was personally allowed to influence the company’s massive advertising spend. When I was editing British Vogue, we published an article by Alicia Drake, the author of the excellent The Beautiful Fall: Fashion, Genius, and Glorious Excess in 1970s Paris, a book Lagerfeld hated, about the Parisian fashion set, and he briefly succeeded in getting Chanel to pull all the advertising out of the magazine. (He also sent me an angry, handwritten letter about the hopelessness of my magazine.) I replied that, luckily, there were quite a few who didn’t share his opinion.

He loves his clothes, cares deeply about the creative process, and is a brilliant cheerleader for talent. But overriding this is his concern with his and others’ standing and clout.
Curious as Leon Talley’s role might appear to an outsider, Wintour clearly valued him. Over the years, she did a staggering amount to help him—securing cash from Condé Nast to purchase a house for his grandmother, staging an intervention and getting him into rehab for weight-related health issues, not once but four times—all paid for by the company. She might be having second thoughts about those kindnesses now. As the saying goes, no good deed goes unpunished.

Ultimately, though, to his mind, this was another relationship that ended in betrayal. When an American Vogue podcast he hosted was canceled in 2018, he found himself replaced on his perch as celebrity interviewer at the top of the Met Ball’s red carpet. What hurt him particularly was that on neither occasion did his mentor personally break the news. “[Wintour] decimated me with this silent treatment so many times…. And I soldiered on, through the elite chiffon trenches,” he writes, vowing to himself that this time he would take no more.

One hopes that he has been able to find a satisfying life outside the confines of Vogue. That he has been able to channel his talents in ways that bring him fulfillment and validation. But it has to be said that on this score things don’t sound too hopeful. In his final chapter, he writes, “I think today Anna still feels a kinship to me or she wouldn’t keep inviting me to her Chanel fittings.” I very much doubt that is still the case now.

AirMail

 

[MissMagAddict]

Love me some airmail. Thank you Benn.

 

[dsamg]

Mentions of her family and Bee’s wedding, from what I understand.

Seems very nasty to me for him to bring up such a personal time like the death of her mother. He is so tacky.

 

[Melancholybaby]

Seems very nasty to me for him to bring up such a personal time like the death of her mother. He is so tacky.

And the fact that her son contracted COVID-19 on a DailyFail interview.

 

[Urban Stylin]

What a mess! This book has turned his legacy into a whiny mess!

 

[tigerrouge]

The kaftan-wearing wiki of fashion is very keen to burn bridges with those who used to bankroll him, but that would make complete sense if he feels there's more of a future in getting money from TV networks than someone like Anna Wintour.

It's like he's loudly advertising himself so that he can secure yet another round of funding as a figure - nay, "fashion legend" - who'll continue to get paid to turn up on TV shows and be a larger-than-life character who can be called upon to say something outrageous.

People might feel embarassed for him, but it might also be the case that Andre has looked around and realised that, in current times, victimhood is a valuable currency, and having no sense of shame is an asset.

 

[MissMagAddict]

The kaftan-wearing wiki of fashion...

This is quality and should be praised.

 

[Benn98]

André Leon Talley’s Memoir ‘In the Chiffon Trenches’ May Be Getting Ready for Prime Time

André Leon Talley’s yet-to-be-released memoir is packed with details about his career in fashion.

By Rosemary Feitelberg on May 6, 2020

In an industry where careers can be elevated or extinguished with one searing review, André Leon Talley understands the power of what words can do.

Recent media coverage of his yet-to-be-released memoir “The Chiffon Trenches: A Memoir,” has zeroed in on the author’s sharp-elbowed criticism of his former boss, Anna Wintour. That coverage led Talley’s publisher, Ballantine, to bump up the book’s release date to May 19 from September.

While the ex-creative director of Vogue expresses an ample amount of animosity toward her, there are also numerous references to how integral Wintour has been to his career and his life. “I lived through the golden age of fashion journalism. Vogue gave me a great life, a great memory of richness. I saw the best in people, along with the worst, when you feel, you are no longer of value,” Talley writes.

As in any discourse, there are two sides to the story and the truth may lay somewhere in between. This, of course, is Talley’s story — in-depth — and it encompasses much more than his falling-out with Wintour. Talley told WWD that his memoir “is not a vengeful, bitchy tell-all.” It’s dishy, but the memoir also delves into racism, binge eating, weight discrimination, sexual abuse and ageism, among other issues. It takes a certain amount of humility to admit to unsuccessful Lap Band surgery under the alias of “Dolly Longstocking.” Talley is also unabashed in describing how totaling a rental car had left him with one concern — whether his Louis Vuitton luggage was OK.

If all of this sounds like a made-for-streaming series, well, one is in the works. Hulu and Amazon are said to be interested, according to a source. Declining to be specific about which parties he’s in talks with, Talley said Tuesday, “I’m aiming very high.” He also said he hoped Will Smith would play him in the series.

Raised by his grandmother, as was customary in Southern black households, Talley took a studious approach to fashion. After graduating from North Carolina State University, he earned a full scholarship for his master’s from Brown University and had embarked on a doctorate there before deciding to relocate to New York City. Volunteering at the Metropolitan Museum of Art under Diana Vreeland was followed by a job at Andy Warhol’s Interview magazine with a $75 weekly salary. Talley later was poached by WWD and its Paris bureau before moving on to freelance, and then a stint at Ebony, followed by roles at Vogue, House & Garden, Vanity Fair and the Savannah College of Art & Design.

His book is not all about glossy high glamour, though. Talley recounts sleeping under a horse blanket on the floor of a fellow Met volunteer’s borrowed studio apartment on Christmas Eve in 1974 and devouring a can of Hershey’s syrup with a fine silver spoon. He details such escapades as a Betty Catroux-led shopping trip to Woolworth’s, where she liked to buy T-shirts — three for 25 cents — to wear under her Yves Saint Laurent suits. Or how he and his favorite stylist subject, Bianca Jagger, once tiptoed around a sleeping Mick Jagger in a hotel suite.

Here, some of the weightier highlights from “In the Chiffon Trenches."

Racism in America

“Although great strides have been made, I’m still very aware of my being black in this country. I’m aware that a black man still has to work 1,000 times harder to live the American dream.…Racism moves under the epidermis as a constraint, constant reality. It’s part of the fabric of our existence. ‘We are a blues culture,’ according to Cornel West. We invent the blues every day when we wake up.”

The reaction to Talley’s review of Hubert de Givenchy’s summer 1978 High Chic show that featured only black models

“Soon after my ecstatic WWD write-up of Givenchy, rumors came back to me that someone at the house of YSL was going around saying I was stealing Yves’ original croquis (or sketches) and handing them to Givenchy for money. Nothing could be further from the truth. Their collections were not even similar. That was the kind of racism I experienced in fashion. Subtle, casual jabs that white people inherently make toward people of color.”

How asking Karl Lagerfeld to help honor late photographer Deborah Turbeville ended their 40-year friendship

”The guillotine dropped. After decades of friendship, I had finally made the list of erased, deleted personal and professional friends who were no longer of any value to Karl. The only people he never had a fight with were people of great power, like Princess Caroline of Monaco.”

Anna Wintour’s “X” factor

“Today, I would love for her to say something human and sincere to me. I have huge emotional and psychological scars from my relationship with this towering and influential woman, who can sit by the queen of England, on the front row of a fashion show, in her uniform of dark glasses and perfect Louise Brooks clipped coiffure framing her Mona Lisa mystery face. Who is she? Does she let down the proverbial dense curtain? She loves her two children and I am sure she will be the best grandmother. But there are so many people who worked for her and have suffered huge emotional scarring. Women and men, designers, photographers, stylists; the list is endless.”

Learning from WWD’s John B. Fairchild how to take the long view

”He taught me how to analyze the beat of fashion and the rhythms of the high rollers, the social doers and achievers of the fashion battlefield. ‘I don’t give a damn about the clothes, I care about the people who wear them,’ was a phrase he oft repeated. From him, I learned how to embrace what was going on around me in 360 degrees. What makes a beautiful dress.…What was Yves’ inspiration? What is the music behind her? What is the chandelier behind her? There are roses, why are they there…What is going on in the mind of the designer? That’s my role, as taught by Mr. Fairchild.”

Joining WWD

”John Fairchild, the king of fashion journalism, the master of WWD, the inventor of W, could be cruel…WWD was considered the fashion bible by most, which therefore made Mr. Fairchild a kind of god. He could destroy a designer by refusing to cover them. Pierre Bergé, Yves Saint Laurent’s business and life partner, would pick Mr. Fairchild up himself at the airport when he came to Paris.…And Saint Laurent always gave Mr. Fairchild an exclusive private preview of his collection. For some (Bill Blass, Saint Laurent, Oscar de la Renta), Mr. Fairchild was a kingmaker. But many others (Geoffrey Beene, James Galanos, Pauline Trigère) had longstanding feuds with him, and their careers suffered because of it.”

Overwhelmed by grief after the deaths of his grandmother and Diana Vreeland in 1989

”I turned to food for comfort. I went into a major binge-addled diet. Some take to drink; I took to eating two packs of Fig Newtons every night. I binged and then suffered all the shame of self-loathing, and misery associated with overeating. The pounds soon started to find their way onto what had up until that time always been a slender frame. I didn’t tell anyone the depth of the depression I was going through.”

Championing a cash-strapped John Galliano in 1993 with Anna Wintour’s help

”’Galliano is a poet,’ I said. ‘He’s the Baudelaire of couture!’ ‘Do whatever you need to do to make Galliano happen,’ Anna told me. Vogue paid for Galliano to come to New York that Christmas. For three days, everyone at Vogue introduced him to all the important people he needed to meet.”

Tom Ford

”…I still remained fiercely loyal to Tom Ford, who has continued to support me no matter my weight: After each of his shows in Milan, Paris and New York, I have always rushed home to dispatch an e-mail with my immediate thoughts on his collections. Some e-mails are streams of consciousness and wildly romantic, and some are quiet. If I don’t understand his message, I simply do not send one. This has only happened once in many years of friendship.”

Naomi Campbell

“Naomi’s elegance permeates in so many ways. Her spirit is fierce. It’s her God-given gifts that astound one as she walks for the best talents of the world…ceo’s of Gucci listen to her every recommendation.”

The best advice his Uncle Lewis had to offer

”Just keep on getting up. Get up every day and just keep going.”

Advice André Offers

“Never give up on your dreams, and do your homework.…My great depth of knowledge is the number-one skill I possess and has carried me throughout my career to this day. Rivers deep, mountains high. All the people who mattered in my life approached me because of my knowledge. Throughout my career, designers like spending time with me because I studied, and I studied, and I resolved to learn as much as I could.”

WWD

 

[Salvatore]

Wow, lol. This is a lot.

 

[MissMagAddict]

I don’t care. I’m reading this book. I already have my kindle app preorder in.

Thanks Benn.

 

[Benn98]

I don’t care. I’m reading this book. I already have my kindle app preorder in.

Thanks Benn.

HAHAHAHAHA! Same here.
If he's doing an audiobook I'll get that as well. Would be a better investment than most of the Vogues or indies nowadays. Tina Brown's one proved thoroughly entertaining.