André Leon Talley Drags Anna Wintour

There is an excerpt in today's Guardian newspaper. The passage is about him quitting the Met Gala in 2018 - storming out in the middle of it.

In the accompanying interview ALT says Lagerfled gave him a gift of 50K for his birthday.
 
I'm sure she's not pleased. I mean we pretty much laughed off Ralph Rucci for doing the same, but he's irrelevant. Marc, on the other hand, is still very relevant and was seemingly team Anna all this time. Aside from the issue of a has been vs a current force, Rucci went went straight for Anna while this post from Jacobs does not. Instead it focuses on the nostalgia and glamour that is clearly spilled out in the book. So while seemingly brave, he's not entirely shading Anna, nor has he any reason to. It's a puzzling move.
 


Gonna have to disagree with sis here. Yes, he became a fashion insider on his own, but his popularity and fame are owed to Vogue, by extension of Wintour. Plenty of fashion editors who are not household names because they didn't receive the midas touch from Anna. I liken it to Gisele and Leonardo DiCaprio. Yes, she was fashion's queen, but it was the moment she latched on to a Hollywood A-lister was when she became a household name. You don't see other high profile catwalkers from that era like Daria or Natasha with that same level of name recognition.
 
Yeah, I always thought that two things skyrocketed Gisele's modeling career into hollywood levels of famous: dating Leo and becoming a VS angel. I won't be surprised if that "relationship" was a pr move from her agent. I love Gisele, but it's clear as day that she wanted the fame, just like ALT wanted some clout from being Anna's friend (lol, I have to put that there to avoid getting off topic)
 


Gonna have to disagree with sis here. Yes, he became a fashion insider on his own, but his popularity and fame are owed to Vogue, by extension of Wintour. Plenty of fashion editors who are not household names because they didn't receive the midas touch from Anna. I liken it to Gisele and Leonardo DiCaprio. Yes, she was fashion's queen, but it was the moment she latched on to a Hollywood A-lister was when she became a household name. You don't see other high profile catwalkers from that era like Daria or Natasha with that same level of name recognition.


the point wasn't whether she wanted it or not. I was highlighting the fact that no model in the 2000's could ever achieve the success of the Supers of the 90's through the usual fashion highways (magazines, ads, runways); it was a different era.

Aside from time and the novelty of it all, I don't really see the distinction between Gisele and the Supers (regarding that level of success). The Supers achieved success because of the fashion highways, yes, but they were pretty much all linked to Hollywood A-listers during their time as well.
 
Aside from time and the novelty of it all, I don't really see the distinction between Gisele and the Supers (regarding that level of success). The Supers achieved success because of the fashion highways, yes, but they were pretty much all linked to Hollywood A-listers during their time as well.

But you can't put the novelty aside, though. Fashion and Hollywood went hand and hand back then. The Supers didn't use Hollywood, they were Hollywood. They were in music videos (George Michael, Michael Jackson, Chris Isaac), House of Style on MtV, opening up Fashion Cafe and doing high profile commercials moreso than they were in the arms of leading Hollywood men.
 
Well for all my whinging about the book, I actually would like to read it. Went to order today and pre-orders are sold out at the places I looked (in Australia). Also surprised by how expensive it is; priciest biography I have seen in a while. Looks like he definitely got what he wanted - I imagine he will make a fair bit from this book.

Source: Booktopia, Dymocks

Goodness! For anyone in the UK, A Great Read's website has free UK delivery and ALT's book priced at £13.77 - and I highly recommend them for anything else (just ordered myself Alexandra Shulman's new book for £12).

I finished this on Tuesday and thoroughly enjoyed it (just as I thought I would). I'm not a huge book reader, have to be seriously invested and engaged with the subject to finish it - and this took me all of 48 hours to complete. Despite the numerous articles regarding Anna Wintour, ALT didn't go ALL the way in with it - he kept it to a minimum I thought and I gathered he still has an enormous amount of love and respect for Wintour.
 
Despite the numerous articles regarding Anna Wintour, ALT didn't go ALL the way in with it .......

...and yet the very few details he shared about her (and Karl) were far more revealing in the sense that it painted a very clear picture of Anna right from the very first 'love at first sight' moment when she sent him that handwritten note, to the 'cold, loveless married couple going through the motions' at her Chanel fitting for the camp gala.
This is not the book for those with high literary standards when it comes to novels meaning the mapping out of chapters, flow, a certain standard of vocabulary. It won't win a Pulitzer! ALT writes the way he speaks, which is to say it's very much like he's telling you, the reader, the story one-on-one with all the little miscellaneous bits thrown in that shows how dedicated he really was to his job. He'll talk about black models one minute, then there's the French society, then he jumps to something about Karl. Always jumping from story to story. From that sense, it's a great memoir because it's so 'imperfect', unlike Alexandra's books which of course are equally nice but impeccably laid out and with perfect diction.
Chiffon Trenches is also quite specific to a certain demographic because you have to know and understand the fashion industry and all the players in order to really feel the value of all the intrigue. Pierre Berge being a b@stard (what's new?), the way subliminal shade getting thrown at Grace and hilariously enough, at Kors, lol.

I was one of those gossip-hungry vipers who rushed to secure my Kindle edition the very first-morning pre-orders opened. And that was before the book started getting major hype, so I've paid an average price. Next purchase will be hardcover, and if an audiobook comes out, that as well.
 
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HM and her classic gritted teeth smile, where you don't know if she's please or disgusted, lol.
I wonder if this book will make the NYT Best Selling list?
 
Right off the bat, they ask him about his career and he starts with Anna Wintour's statement about BLM.....

 
Right off the bat, they ask him about his career and he starts with Anna Wintour's statement about BLM.....

It’s always Anna, Anna, Anna.
Rev. Al had him on his show recently and he started right in about Anna and Oprah.


Our friendship is covered with thick rust...

I love that line from the book.

:lol:
 
I remember Naomi saying something to the effect of people not hiring her for jobs, but will throw her name into the conversation just to get the attention. I feel like he does it with Anna's name because in the bigger public eye, he's really not that relevant, and he wants to sell this book.
 
LOL, it seems ALT didn't get the memo that a Stephen Sackur interview is never a walk in the park. 'Vogue is a fashion magazine, not a political magazine!!' He just dragged all 26 Vogue editors across the globe without meaning to.

 
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André Leon Talley sticks up for Anna Wintour after blasting her in book

André Leon Talley has put his feud with Vogue editor Anna Wintour aside this week and rushed to her defense against charges of racism at the fashion mag.

Talley — who was once Wintour’s trusted No. 2 — supported her Wednesday against a New York Times exposé that revealed bigotry at Vogue, even though he recently blasted her as a “colonial broad” who is steeped in “white privilege.”

“Anna made history by making me the first African American male EVER to be named as creative director of Vogue, in 1988. She crashed the glass ceiling,” he wrote on Instagram, along with an image of them at the Met Ball in 1999.

“From there, the possibility of Sir @edwardenninful became the first black male to EVER become editor in chief of Vogue UK.”

The fashionable Talley also recalled what they wore that night.

“In the realm of possibility of forgiveness, yours truly, in Tom Ford, custom, by @gucci and Dame Anna Wintour in Galliano couture @Dior climbing the stairs to the Met Gala…those were the halcyon days when we were at the apex of the high fashion world. We were our younger better angels.”

The post was liked by Edward Enninful and designers including Marc Jacobs, who added: “Possibility is all we have. And luckily that is a lot. Possibility allows for hope.”

Talley’s show of support comes after he ripped Wintour in his recently released memoir “The Chiffon Trenches” for firing him from working at the famous Met Gala in favor of a young YouTuber. He wrote Wintour is “not capable” of “human kindness.”

In an interview about the book, he said Wintour is “a colonial dame, she comes from British, she’s part of an environment of colonialism. She is entitled and I do not think she will ever let anything get in the way of her white privilege.”

In the Times exposé, Wintour copped to acting poorly when it comes to issues of race.

“I strongly believe that the most important thing any of us can do in our work is to provide opportunities for those who may not have had access to them,” she said.

“Undoubtedly, I have made mistakes along the way, and if any mistakes were made at Vogue under my watch, they are mine to own and remedy and I am committed to doing the work.”

Talley had also praised his former boss for putting Naomi Campbell on the cover of the coveted September issue — saying it would go some way to healing wounds.
source | pagesix



 

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