In Memoriam : Andre Leon Talley, fashion icon and journalist

Fashion icon and journalist Andre Leon Talley has died on Tuesday, TMZ reports.

The former Vogue creative director and editor-at-large died at a hospital in White Plains, New York.

No cause of death was released.

Andre Leon Talley : a fashion icon

Talley was instrumental to Vogue’s vision and direction in the ’80s and ’90s. He worked his way up the magazine ranks and eventually became the news director — which he lead from ’83 to ’87 — and then became Vogue’s creative director in ’88.

Vogue

At Vogue he worked side by side with Anna Wintour, Vogue’s editor-in-chief,  and is revered as one of the first mainstream African American tastemakers in the U.S.

In May 2020, he released a memoir about his life and career, titled The Chiffon Trenches, which chronicles his incredible rise from the front porch of his grandmother’s home in Durham, North Carolina, to the front rows of fashion.

Talley was a LGBTQ icon and a trailblazer in the fashion industry for over six decades who worked tirelessly to promote more diversity on the runway and in the creative ranks of high fashion.

He was 73.